


Coach Z

by thistidalwave



Series: Coach Z 'verse [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Coming of Age, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Off-Screen Substance Abuse, Pre-Canon, Reference to Suicidal Ideation, Slow Build, Tiny Hockey Sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 94,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5475824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, top prospect Jack Zimmermann overdoses on his anxiety medication and is admitted to rehab. His future turns from a clear-cut road to the top into an uncertain path filled with therapy appointments, ignored text messages, a group of boys who aren't there to teach him a lesson about himself, and, of course, hockey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I want to profusely thank the crew that's supported me for the ten months I've been working on this. Short version: you're all amazing and I couldn't have done it without you. Long version...
> 
> First and foremost, [Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blamefincham), my life-beta, my star. I think laughing hysterically at 3 AM about the children's nicknames and plotting out the storyline in the car in the middle of the night way back in March is what I'll remember the most about writing this. I feel comfortable awarding you a solid 1% of this written by you and a full 100% that wouldn't have existed without you anyway. Thank you for always being there to twist the knife. Thank you for making fun of my trash and then helping fix it. Thank you for your unending encouragement and patience. <3
> 
> Thanks to [Calley](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bitnotgood) for listening to me whine about long it was getting, and for Toaster's nickname. Thanks to [Becca](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tripleangst) for the ongoing help and for the careful and thoughtful final pre-read. A huge thank you to [Amy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera) for being my pre-release audience and providing invaluable insight into issues big and small. You definitely improved the final version.
> 
> Finally, thank you so so much to everyone on Twitter who responded to or liked my Coach Z update tweets. Some days your enthusiasm is what kept me writing. I hope it lives up to your expectations. <3
> 
> Here we go! Please let me know what you think - I welcome everything from incoherent screaming to #deepthoughts to concrit. :)

When I was a child, I grew up by the River Lea.  
There was something in the water, now that something's in me.  
Oh, I can't go back, but the reeds are growing out of my fingertips.  
I can't go back to the river.  
— Adele, “River Lea”

 

 

 

 

 

 **Kenny**  
I cant believe you lied to me  
10:32 AM | 06-27-09

 **Kenny**  
Actually i can  
12:52 PM | 06-27-09

 **Kenny**  
Hope ur ok  
7:26 PM | 06-27-09

 **Kenny**  
I thought that were best friends but i guess not  
2:44 AM | 06-29-09

 **Kenny**  
Considering u couldn’t fucking tell me s/t this big  
2:46 AM | 06-29-09

 **Kenny**  
Wtf did u think id even do???? Fuck  
3:05 AM | 06-29-09

 **Kenny**  
Fuck you jack  
3:06 AM | 06-29-09

 **Kenny**  
U kno 5th round still counts, u could come here w me  
1:32 PM | 06-30-09

 **Missed a Call from Kenny**  
12:01 AM | 07-01-09

 **Missed a Call from Kenny**  
1:33 PM | 07-04-09

 **Missed a Call from Kenny**  
5:23 PM | 07-04-09

 **Missed a Call from Kenny**  
10:58 PM | 07-04-09

 **Kenny**  
Wtf won’t u pick up your phone???  
11:01 PM | 07-04-09

 **Missed a Call from Kenny**  
2:33 AM | 07-05-09

 **Kenny**  
Jack please  
2:37 AM | 07-05-09

 **Kenny**  
This radio silence is rly selfish of u tbh  
2:56 AM | 07-16-09

 **Kent Parson**  
Wouldnt read deadspin if i were u  
4:45 PM | 07-17-09

 **Kent Parson**  
In fact dont read anything  
5:16 PM | 07-17-09

 **Kent Parson**  
Happy birthday, Zimms.  
12:05 AM | 08-03-09

— 

There’s a knock on Jack’s half-open bedroom door. A second later, it swings open all the way and his mother appears, holding the cordless phone out to Jack. 

“Phone’s for you, dear,” Alicia says. 

Jack frowns. He thought that he was pretty much done with talking on the phone for a while after fielding calls from what seemed like his entire extended family yesterday. He’s pretty sure he’s never had so many calls on his birthday in his life, and he’s never wanted to deal with them less, either. The conversations had been more about what wasn’t being said rather than what was, and Jack had been exhausted by it almost immediately. 

“Who is it?” he asks, getting up off his bed and walking over regardless.

Alicia just shrugs and presses the phone into his hand. He gives her his most exasperated look, but she’s unperturbed. 

“Hello?” 

“Jack, hello!” says a vaguely-familiar deep voice. “This is Josselin Leclair calling. How are you today?”

It takes Jack a second, but he manages to connect the voice and the name with his old Pee-Wee hockey coach. “Oh, Coach Leclair, hi,” he says, wondering what the hell this is about. “I’m well, how are you?”

“I’m good, thank you,” Coach Leclair says. “Listen, Jack, I heard that you’re going to be sticking around Montréal for a while, is that right?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Jack says, hoping he doesn’t sound as bitter or defensive as he feels about it. Alicia is still hovering next to him, looking for all the world like she wants to take the phone back and demand answers. Jack takes a step away from her just in case. 

“Well, I’ve got a job opening that I thought you might be interested in. How would you feel about being an assistant coach for the Conquérants Pee-Wee AA team this season? You could come back and see your old stomping grounds, what do you say?” 

“I, uh—”

“It’s a paid position, of course, and the certification won’t be a problem for you to get, I’m sure. It’s just a couple online courses,” Coach Leclair barrels on. “What do you say? The kids could use someone who’s been there sometime in the last decade.”

“That’s, um, a really generous offer,” Jack says, because _wow_ , is it ever. Jack’s already come up with at least three reasons why he’d be the worst choice for an assistant coach from a purely logical standpoint, including but not limited to his current status in the media as a probable cocaine addict. “Thank you for thinking of me. Would it be all right if I took a bit to think about it? And talk it out with my parents?” 

“Oh, sure,” Coach Leclair agrees amiably. “I’ve given you pretty short notice, seeing as training camp starts this Saturday, but a couple days won’t make a difference. Would you like me to email you some more information? The team’s schedule and the like?” 

“That’d be great.” Jack ignores the way his mother is staring so intensely at him that he thinks her eyes might well pop out of her head and waits for Coach Leclair to find a pen before spelling out his email address for him. 

“Now, my phone number will be in the email, so just call me back when you’ve decided and we can go from there,” Coach Leclair says. “Take care of yourself.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Jack says. “You, too.” 

Alicia is on his case as soon as he hangs up. “What did Coach Leclair want?” 

Jack blinks down at the phone, a little shell-shocked. “He offered me a job.”

— 

Jack cuts his steak into smaller and smaller pieces. The dining room is silent enough that Jack can hear the clock on the wall ticking and every clink of cutlery against china seems to echo. He flicks his eyes from his mom to his dad and then back down to his plate. 

They have family dinner every day at six sharp. Nobody has missed a single one since Jack came home from rehab. Jack thinks they used to eat together when he was really little, too, but it definitely fell to the wayside as he got older and had hockey practice after school. Then he left to play in the Q and, well. 

They eat together now. It’s supposed to help them bond, even though Jack’s fairly sure sitting in silence isn’t really a bonding activity.

“Eat your food,” Alicia says softly, giving Jack a look. Jack puts two of his tiny pieces of steak in his mouth and chews.

Bob clears his throat. “So, Mom tells me you got an interesting phone call today.” 

Jack swallows his food and nods. “Yeah. You remember Coach Leclair?” 

“Of course,” Bob says immediately. “Coaches Pee-Wee. I see him at events sometimes.” 

“He offered me a position as assistant coach,” Jack says. 

Bob noticeably brightens, then frowns. Jack wants to be sick. “That’s awful generous of him. Did you accept?” 

Jack shakes his head. “I said I would think about it.” 

Bob nods. “And?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack says. 

“What don’t you know?” Bob asks, his voice taking on an edge that has Jack struggling not to physically recoil and Alicia shaking her head at Bob. Bob frowns down at his plate.

“If I should,” Jack says, breaking the tension.

“Why not?” Alicia asks. 

Jack shrugs. “I’m not exactly assistant coach material.”

“Nonsense,” Alicia scoffs. “You’re great with kids, you always have been.”

“Okay, yeah,” Jack says, because that’s true enough. He likes kids, especially kids who play hockey. They’re always so enthusiastic about it; it reminds Jack of how he used to be. “But no one’s going to think I’m a good role model.” 

“Josselin must,” Bob points out. 

“Yeah, but…” Jack struggles to find the words. “What if he… what if he’s not thinking of _me_? I’m not twelve anymore.”

“I think he knows that,” Bob says wryly. “He’s probably watched some sports news lately.”

“Bob,” Alicia says admonishingly, “it’s not as if those reports are true.” 

“No, exactly,” Jack says. “They’re wrong, but they’re not _that_ wrong. Maybe he thinks I’m not that person, but I am. I am screwed up.” 

“Don’t say that,” Bob says sharply. “You’re sick, and you’re handling it. I think you would be stupid to turn this opportunity down.” 

Jack stares at him. Bob stares back, eyes stony, until Jack looks down. It’s hard to wrap his head around the fact that he’s handling anything at all. He’d spent a hell of a long time spiralling out of control, and he still feels like he’s only hanging on to sanity by his fingertips. 

“I want you to do what’s right for you, Jack,” Alicia says after a few minutes of familiar silence, “but I think your father is right. All you’ve done lately is lie around the house. That’s not good for you at all. We’re not going to start charging you rent or anything, but you need to do _something_. If not this, then something else.” 

“I do things,” Jack protests. “I tend the garden. And I go to therapy.” 

Alicia fixes him with a look. “It won’t be summer forever. And what would Dr. Albert say about this?” 

Jack sighs and considers that. Julie would ask him what _he_ wanted to do, and when Jack thinks about it like that… he wants to do this. His parents are right, he can’t sit around doing nothing for the rest of his life. He wants to get back on the ice, even if it’s not the ice he _should_ be on. 

“Fine,” Jack says. “I’ll do it. I’ll call Coach Leclair after supper.”

Alicia beams at him, and Bob smiles too. “Proud of you, son,” he says after a moment.

Jack doesn’t really believe him, but he nods anyway. It’s easier. “Okay,” he says.

— 

Jack makes sure to get to the rink early on Saturday, double and triple checking the schedule he printed off to make sure that he’s got the right one. He’s early enough that the doors are still locked, and he stands awkwardly in front of them, his hockey bag weighing down one shoulder. It’s a crisp August morning, the grey sky and bit of a chill in the air promising rain later that day, and it reminds Jack of the time he’d spent standing in this exact spot over the years, waiting for one of the coaches to arrive because his dad had dropped him off early. 

Jack doesn’t recognize the silver SUV that pulls in next to his truck, but he does recognize the man who gets out of it. He’s a little older, with a lot more grey in his hair and deeper lines in his face when he smiles at Jack and waves, but he’s unmistakably Coach Leclair. 

“Just like old times, eh, Jack?” He shifts his bags so he can shake Jack’s hand, his grip strong and steady, then steps around him to get at the door. “We’ll get you some keys, you can take over set up and let my old ass sleep in.” He looks up from unlocking the door and winks at Jack. Jack smiles tentatively.

The arena looks much the same as it did when Jack spent most of his life there, but Coach Leclair shows him around anyway. The office spaces are completely new to him, and he learns he’ll be sharing a desk in Coach Leclair’s office with the other assistant coach. 

“Not that your predecessor was in here much, but it’s good for last minute paperwork. The desk is basically a glorified filing cabinet,” Coach Leclair jokes.

Jack makes what he hopes is an amused noise. “Is he going to be here today?” he asks of the other assistant coach.

Coach Leclair looks momentarily confused, then nods. “Oh, yeah. She’ll be here.” He grins. “Cyrille is a great girl, you’ll get along with her.” 

Jack wants to crawl under the desk and pretend he’d never said anything at all. He considers apologizing for the assumption, but decides to just keep his mouth shut. Instead, he offers Coach Leclair the folder of papers that he emailed Jack, now printed and completed. 

A girl that Jack assumes must be the aforementioned Cyrille comes in while Coach Leclair is looking the papers over and signing them. She’s very short, not even reaching Jack’s shoulders, and her platinum blonde hair is pulled into a tight curly ponytail. She gives Jack an appraising once-over, one eyebrow raised, then blows a bubble with her gum and snaps it. She sticks a hand out toward Jack. “Cyrille Durand,” she says.

“Jack Zimmermann,” he replies, shaking her hand. Her hand is tiny in his, but she has a death grip that makes him wince.

“I know,” she says dismissively, dropping his hand abruptly. “What’s the game plan for today, Coach?” 

Turns out the plan is remarkably similar to how training camp had worked when Jack was one of the players. It’s different, being the one checking in kids and directing them to their correct dressing rooms, but it’s a good kind of different. It’s a position of responsibility, but not so difficult that Jack feels overwhelmed by it.

Most of the kids’ parents recognize him, and those who don’t, their kid does. Jack gets a lot of wide-eyed stares from the kids and conspicuous not-asking from the adults. He knows a few by name, and those people greet him and tell him he’s looking good before they leave. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” asks one of the last kids to check in, a gangly boy with spiky dark hair and a judging expression on his face. Jack stops flipping through his papers looking for the L section, caught off guard.

“ _Casimir_ ,” his mother hisses, scolding. “Sorry,” she says to Jack.

“It’s okay,” Jack says awkwardly. “I’m here to help out Coach Leclair,” he adds, directing it at Casimir.

Casimir doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t say anything else either. Jack finds his name on the list and highlights it. “Dressing room three,” he tells them. Casimir’s mother shepherds him off with another apologetic glance at Jack. 

Jack takes the minute before the next arrival to close his eyes and wish he was in his bed. _There aren’t any people there_ , he thinks bitterly, and then he thinks of his mother’s disapproving face and snaps himself out of it.

Once he’s double checked the list to make sure everyone in Group 1 has arrived, Jack makes his way to the bench. Most of the kids are already on the ice, skating haphazardly around, and Jack sits down to take his skate guards off. The arena is loud with the sound of kids shouting and skates scraping along the ice, and it’s all painfully familiar. Jack gives himself a moment to soak it all in before he steps out onto the ice.

Coach Leclair is there, but he’s talking to the A team coaches, and Jack doesn’t want to disturb them. He skates slowly toward Cyrille, unsure of himself. She’s surrounded by a bunch of kids—mostly older ones, if Jack is judging correctly—who are talking excitedly at her while she smiles and listens attentively. She glances up and sees Jack, and her smile drops for a second before returning so quickly that Jack doubts what he saw. She gestures for him to come over, though, so he does.

“You all know Jack Zimmermann,” she says to the boys when Jack is closer. Jack tries not to cringe and gives an awkward wave. 

“Hi,” he says. He wishes he wasn’t, but he’s thoroughly intimidated by these six young boys staring at him. 

“What are you doing here?” one of them asks. He gets elbowed in the side by the kid next to him, but no one takes back the question.

Jack balks, glancing at Cyrille for help, but she’s just looking at him intently, like she’s interested in the answer. “I, uh. Am gonna help out Coach Leclair,” he says, uncomfortably parroting his earlier self.

“All season?” one of the boys asks.

“Yeah, all season,” Jack confirms. 

“Huh,” the boy says. 

There’s an awkward silence, and everyone is still staring at Jack, so he tries to fill it. “Did you guys play last year?” 

They all nod. “We all want to make AA again this year,” one of them tells Jack seriously.

Jack nods seriously back as Cyrille laughs. “I hope you all worked hard this summer,” she says. “Or was it all popsicles and TV?” 

There’s a chorus of protests mixed in with guilty expressions behind their face masks. Jack stifles a laugh. 

Just then there’s the piercing shrill of a whistle, and they turn to see one of the other coaches waving a hand to call them all over. The boys are off, mock racing each other, and Cyrille smirks at Jack before following them. Jack hangs back a bit and is surprised when one of the shorter kids does as well. He tugs gently on the sleeve of Jack’s coat, and Jack looks down into huge blue eyes. “Guess what!” the kid says, grinning.

“What?” Jack asks.

“My parents named me after your dad! My name’s Robert,” he adds unnecessarily. “Everyone calls me Roddy, though, because my last name is Rodzinski.” 

“Oh,” Jack says. “That’s…” _weird and unsettling and a bit unfortunate, probably,_ is what he wants to say, but he settles for, “cool.” Roddy grins at him before skating ahead. Jack resolves never to think about him being named after Jack’s dad ever again.

The day is set up in alternating ninety minute blocks with Groups 1 and 2 switching off. Jack hangs around for most of Group 1’s first session, feeling too uncomfortable to make any corrections. Some of the kids are pretty bad at even just skating, and Jack’s toes itch to show them how it’s done. Intellectually he knows he could—he’s in a position of authority here. But he also knows he’s the only new assistant coach, and it seems right to hang back for now.

He gets to leave the ice half an hour early to start checking in arrivals from Group 2, and he feels much more at ease carefully highlighting names. Maybe he should’ve just gotten an office job if he was going to feel so out of his depth on the ice. 

The day doesn’t really improve from there. Three more people ask him what he’s doing here—one of them is an adult, which throws him for a loop. He gives his now-stock answer to all of them. Halfway through Group 2’s first session, a tall, built kid skates up to Jack, stopping a mere metre away, and stares at him for a good thirty seconds. Jack stares back, slightly afraid he’s about to be jumped by a twelve-year-old, until the kid nods and skates away.

Cyrille happens to be near him at the time, and Jack throws her a panicked look. She must take pity on him, because she skates over to say, “That was Theo, though everyone calls him Bear. He’s the current AA captain.” 

“What was…” Jack trails off, gesturing in the hopes it’ll indicate the entire incident.

“I have no idea,” Cyrille says, shrugging. Jack is distinctly not comforted.

There’s a break from two until four, during which Jack sits in the concession area, picks at a sandwich, and hopes no one will talk to him. Nobody does. The last session ends at seven that night, and the boys are all gone by seven-thirty. Jack is heading toward the exit, stretching his toes inside his shoes in an attempt to get some feeling back in them and wondering what they’re having for family dinner (now rescheduled to occur half an hour after Jack is done work), when someone grabs his arm and drags him out of the hallway. 

It’s Cyrille, and she backs him up against the wall in the alcove next to a supply closet, leaning in close to him. “Listen, Zimmermann, let’s get a couple things straight,” she says in English, pointing an accusing finger at him. Jack’s brain struggles to keep up with this series of events. “First and foremost, if you fuck up these kids, I’ll fuck _you_ up.”

“Um,” Jack says. 

“No, I’m not done,” Cyrille says. She’s hovering so close that Jack can smell her watermelon gum. “If you’re just here for an easy ride, you can leave, okay? The other assistant coach last year was a washed-up deadbeat just like you, and dude? These kids aren’t here for you to learn something about yourself.”

Jack can’t help it; he snorts. 

“What, you think this is _funny_?” Cyrille hisses. 

“No, no,” Jack says, though he does find Cyrille’s apparent moonlighting as a tiny ball of righteous rage pretty amusing. “I just—I’m not here for the kids to teach me anything new about myself.” He laughs again. “I have a therapist for that.”

Cyrille narrows her eyes, appraising. “I’m going to make you do all the paperwork,” she tells him gravely.

Jack shrugs. “I… like paperwork?” 

“Hm,” Cyrille hums speculatively, then switches back to French. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Jack says, watching her walk toward the back door. He heads in the other direction, shaking his head incredulously. When he’s finally sitting in his car, he takes a deep breath and rests his head on the steering wheel for a moment. “That could’ve gone better,” he mutters to himself, sitting up and turning the keys in the ignition. 

But on the other hand: it could’ve gone worse. He didn’t have any public breakdowns, he stayed all day, and he might want a drink pretty bad right now, but he’s fairly confident that he’s not going to let himself have one. And, most important of all, he’s not completely paralyzed at the thought of going back for more tomorrow, though thinking about an entire year ahead of him is another story. 

_One step at a time_ , he reminds himself. _One step at a time_.

— 

Dr. Julie Albert’s office is small and simple. The walls are a dark shade of blue, and there’s a bookcase on the far wall and a desk pushed against the wall adjacent to the door. Opposite the desk is the focal point of the room: a plush red couch with a multicoloured afghan laid neatly across the back. The first time Jack entered the room, early morning the day after returning home from rehab, the stark difference from the pale greens of hospital walls made him think that this therapy thing might not be quite as bad as it was at rehab.

He was wrong. The couch might be comfortable and the afghan cozy, but Julie is ruthless. 

She looks just as kind as ever today, leaning back in her gigantic office chair and smiling at Jack when he comes in. He sinks down into the couch and wonders, as he always does, if she’d let him have a nap instead of talking about his feelings.

“How are you today?” Julie asks. 

“Good,” Jack says, shrugging. “Got up early and went for a run, had breakfast, now I’m here.” 

Julie nods. “Did you have a good birthday last week?” 

Jack spent the time he wasn’t fielding phone calls on his birthday watching the History Channel in the loft and trying not to think of all the fun things to do when he turned eighteen that he used to dream up with his friends—well, mostly with Kent. The things had mostly involved bars and parties, and those are both places Jack can’t and won’t let himself go to now, even if he had friends to go with. His mother spent the afternoon making him cake, and his parents sang to him and made him blow out the candles at family supper, and it was a hell of a lot of things Jack didn’t want to deal with and didn’t feel like he deserved.

“Well, it wasn’t the best birthday I’ve ever had,” Jack says. 

“Do you want to talk about that?” Julie asks. Jack is well aware that the only reason she’s giving him an option is because they talked last week about how his expectations for his eighteenth birthday were nothing like the reality, and he doesn’t have any desire to rehash that. He shakes his head, and Julie nods. “What did you get up to for the rest of the week?”

“Oh, I, uh, got a job,” Jack says. “I’m assistant coaching my old Pee-Wee team.”

“Wow, that’s quite a big change,” Julie says, eyebrows raising with interest. “How did that come about?”

Jack tells her about Coach Leclair’s phone call and that the first two days of training camp were this last weekend. He spends a good few minutes explaining the process of splitting the kids up into teams for practice games, and how they’re going to use those games to evaluate team placement. It’s virtually a parrot of how Cyrille had explained it to him the day before, and when Jack falls silent at the end of it, Julie just looks at him expectantly.

Jack knows that look. It’s the look she gives him when he’s not being open enough. He frowns, avoiding her gaze for a moment, then says, “I felt kind of weird.” 

The look disappears. “Weird how?” Julie prompts.

“Um,” Jack says, “like I wasn’t supposed to be there?” 

“Why did you feel like you weren’t supposed to be there?” 

Jack shrugs. “I don’t know. It was just weird.”

“Okay,” Julie says. “How did your dad react to it?” 

“Uh,” Jack says, caught off guard by her not pressing his avoidance of the question. “He said I’d be stupid to not do it. And that he was proud of me. He, uh… he says that a lot lately.” 

“Since family therapy?” Julie asks, though Jack is pretty sure she already knows the answer is yes. They spent quite a lot of time in those sessions talking about expressing positive emotions to each other.

“Yeah, probably,” Jack answers anyway. “I never know what to say, though.”

“To your dad?” 

Jack nods. “I just end up saying okay every time.” 

Julie looks thoughtful, twirling the pen she never takes notes with around her fingers. “Would you say that you felt the same way at work that you do when your dad says he’s proud of you?” 

“Uh,” Jack says. Now that he’s thinking about it, they are remarkably similar feelings of being out of place and awkward. Which is how he feels most of the time, really, but… “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“What do you think makes you feel like that?” 

Jack’s not dumb; he can see that they’re back to the question about why he felt like he wasn’t supposed to be at the arena. Julie has a knack for taking the conversation in circles like that, and Jack falls for it every time. It doesn’t mean he suddenly has an answer, but the patient look on Julie’s face means that she’s settling in to wait for him. 

He stares at the seascape painting on the wall and thinks about what makes coaching and his dad’s praise similar. “I guess, uh,” he says slowly, “they’re both things that I didn’t expect to have.” 

“Okay,” Julie says, “and you feel…”

“Like I shouldn’t have them,” Jack says, more sure of his words now. “I was supposed to play in the NHL, and I fucked it all up.” 

“So you think you don’t deserve to coach these kids and have your dad be proud of you?”

“That’s not—” Jack cuts himself off and stares at the floor. That might not be what he said, but Julie’s right. “I don’t,” he mumbles.

“Why not?” Julie asks.

Something about the soothing tone of Julie’s voice hits a nerve. “I just _don’t_ ,” he snaps. “I was supposed to play in the _NHL_.” 

“What makes you think you won’t still play in the NHL someday?” Julie asks. She has one eyebrow slightly raised, and the soothing tone is gone now. “You didn’t even go undrafted.”

Jack laughs bitterly. “I think me being here answers that question.” 

“Hm,” Julie says, “I disagree. Just because you didn’t take the path you wanted to doesn’t mean all the other paths are closed off.”

“I couldn’t hack it,” Jack insists.

“Maybe you aren’t ready yet,” Julie concedes, surprising Jack. “But I said someday, if you decide that’s what you want. And I think one of the first steps on your new path is realizing that you do deserve what you have.”

Jack shrugs and looks away. There’s a long moment of silence before Julie speaks again.

“Did you have an assistant coach when you played Pee-Wee?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says. “We had two, I think, but I only remember Dustin.” 

“Did you like him?” 

Jack shrugs. He’s trying to figure out where Julie is going with this, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. “We all did, yeah. He was nice to us.” 

“Why don’t you remember the other one?” 

“I think he must’ve just done things in the office or something,” Jack says, suddenly acutely aware that he’s probably going to be that assistant coach that none of the kids remember. He would have thought he’d be okay with that, but it’s actually a pretty sad idea. 

“Okay,” Julie says. She leans forward slightly, and Jack braces himself for a tough question. “Do you know how Dustin ended up coaching your team?”

Jack shakes his head.

“Do you think he deserved to have his dad be proud of him for his job?” 

Jack frowns. He doesn’t even know if Dustin had a dad in his life, but he knows pointing that out would be fruitless. That’s obviously not the point of the question. “Sure,” he says. He can already see the hole he’s digging for himself with the shovel Julie handed him.

“So why should Dustin’s dad be proud of him but your dad not be proud of you?”

“It’s different,” Jack says immediately. He doesn’t even care that he’s at the bottom of the hole now, because it _is_ different. Dustin wasn’t the no-good, couldn’t-hack-it son of an NHL superstar. “There’s no way Dustin’s situation was anything like mine.” 

Julie sits back in her chair. “Is it really that different? Don’t answer that now—I want you to think about it, and we’ll talk about it next week.” 

Jack sighs and nods. He hates therapy homework. 

— 

Training camp gets easier once Jack settles into a routine. Jack’s main responsibility is taking notes on each player during the mock games, which is so easy for him that he probably goes a little overboard. Everything Jack read in both his coaching certifications and the general regulations has stressed that Pee-Wee hockey is mostly about building skills, teamwork, and the love of the game rather than intense competition, but it’s not like there’s _no_ competition. The boys are still getting split into teams based on skill level, and Jack gets to put his critical eye to good use. 

He’s made nice with most of the staff—save Cyrille, who greeted Jack today by dumping two binders bursting at the rings into his arms and saying “have fun” before walking away. The rest of the staff are easy because they seem to trust Coach Leclair’s judgement, but the kids are still keeping their distance. He’s not sure whether it’s his fame preceding him or that he’s actually acting intimidating, but either way it’s not good. He doesn’t need them to love him, but he does need their respect if he’s going to pull his weight as an assistant coach. He just has to figure out how to earn it. 

It’s the second intermission of their first game of the day, and Jack is standing in his customary spot behind the bench, idly making final notes on the period and listening to the kids in front of him talking. 

“We need to _score_ ,” the one on the right, black practice jersey sporting a temporary number 21, complains. “Why isn’t anyone ever open?”

“Maybe _you’re_ not open,” number 11 suggests. “I keep trying, dude, honestly.”

Jack glances from his clipboard to them and back again, eyes skimming over his notes. 21 is Sebastien Gagné and 11 is André Bolduc, both of them new to Pee-Wee this year and both of them with extensive notes scrawled below their names. Most of the notes are positive, but the black jersey team does have a tendency to not follow through. Thankfully, Jack is fairly sure he knows where they’re going wrong. 

He leans forward and taps Sebastien on the shoulder. “Hey, uh,” he says, “I have a play that might help?”

Sebastien looks up with wide eyes, then glances at André, who shrugs. “Okay,” Sebastien says. “What is it?” 

Jack fumbles with his clipboard, aiming to flip over his paper so he can draw on the back of it. “One moment,” he says. “Get Casimir to listen, too.” 

“What?” Casimir snaps when André hits him in the shoulder.

“Don’t look so sour, Wino. Zimmermann’s gonna show us a play,” André says. Casimir makes a face, but he does turn to pay attention. 

Jack shows them the play, drawing it out for them and explaining it twice to make sure they’ve got it. “I’ll make sure Coach puts you out there together, okay?” 

They all nod, and Jack goes to tell Coach Leclair to try out a 20-21-11 line in the next period. Coach Leclair looks at him curiously, then shrugs. “Will do,” he says. 

The black jerseys score less than two minutes into the period, Jack’s line executing the play almost perfectly. The bench erupts with cheers and exclamations of “whoa!” Even Coach Leclair whistles when Sebastien tips the puck in at the corner. 

One of the kids twists around to look at Jack. “Is that what you were telling Chicken to do?” 

Jack blinks; he’s not sure which one Chicken is, but it’s a safe bet that it’s either André or Sebastien, so he nods. The kid looks impressed, and he turns around and starts whispering with the boy sitting next to him.

Coach Leclair grins at Jack. “You’d better go give the red team some help too or else we’ll get complaints,” he teases. 

Sebastien is beaming when he comes back off the ice at the end of his shift. “Did you _see_ that?” he practically yells. “It was like there wasn’t even anyone there!” 

Jack can’t help the grin that spreads across his face. He almost feels like he scored the goal himself.

“You have to show us more,” André says seriously as he sits down. 

“Yeah,” Casimir agrees. 

“Well,” Jack says, starting to actually feel excited, “I’ll be here all season.” 

— 

That night after supper, Jack takes over the formal dining room table with the binders Cyrille had given him. They’re a mess of paperwork with the remnants of an organizational system that was clearly never used lurking in the form of mislabelled dividers. Jack could leave it until he has some time in the office to work on organizing it, but he’d rather spend his time at the rink with the kids, and besides that, he figures that the faster he gets it done, the more likely Cyrille will at least respect his work ethic. 

Jack flips through them to get a sense of the contents—it’s mostly registration forms and liability waivers, some half-assed notes on the players written by someone named Sean (probably the assistant coach responsible for this mess) and better notes by a Jake dated before that, along with assorted schedules and newsletters. Jack looks at the papers, then looks at the partially-shredded dividers and broken rings of the binders, and then makes an executive decision to make a run to the nearest office supply store. 

When he gets back, he starts in on sorting the papers by type and year. He’s got piles spread all the way down the table, each one labelled with a sticky note, when Alicia walks in. She picks up a piece of paper from one of the far stacks and peers at it. “What are you up to?” she asks.

“Paperwork,” Jack says wryly. “Make sure you put that back where you found it.” 

Alicia carefully places it back in the stack it came from. “This is a lot… of papers.”

Jack snorts. “Um, yeah,” he says. 

“Okay, well,” Alicia says, “don’t work too hard.” 

She wanders out of the room again, and Jack stands there staring after her for a moment. The exchange had reminded him of the countless times she’d come out to the backyard rink when Jack was practicing by himself and told him something similar. Jack’s not sure he knows _how_ to not work too hard. 

He shakes it off and goes back to sorting. It’s got to be done, so he might as well do it. 

He’s moved on to putting each year into its own binder with actual proper dividers when Bob comes in. Jack snaps the rings of the 2007 binder shut and looks up at him.

“It’s getting late,” Bob says. “Are you almost done here?” 

This, too, feels like the nights Jack would spend on the ice. Usually he would bargain for extra time, tell his dad that he just needed to get this _one_ thing and then he’d be in, but… maybe he should be turning over a new leaf.

“Almost,” he says. “I’ll get it done tomorrow before I go to the arena.”

Bob nods. “I’m sure you will.”

“I’m going to bed now, though,” Jack says, standing. “Night, Dad.” 

“Oh,” Bob says as Jack walks past him. “You’re not going to clean this up?”

“I’ll be done tomorrow before work,” Jack repeats. “We don’t need the table, do we?” 

Bob looks at the table, then at Jack. “No, no, you’re right,” he says. “That’s fine. Good night, Jack.” 

— 

Jack wakes up earlier than is strictly necessary, and even after taking his time with his regular morning workout, he has plenty of time to finish organizing the paperwork before he has to be at the arena. He’s early, and he spends the extra time rearranging the filing cabinet in the office. 

Cyrille shows up right on time—and just in time to witness Jack shoving the too-full bottom drawer shut. She raises an eyebrow at him. “How did all that paperwork go?” she asks. 

“Fine,” Jack says. 

“So fine that you’re shoving it all into the filing cabinet?” Cyrille asks sardonically. 

“Uh, no,” Jack says, frowning. “I was moving old things out of the way so we can actually find relevant information.” 

Cyrille’s eyebrows seem to climb even farther up her face. “Were you,” she says flatly.

Jack nods. “See, now the binders we need for this season are in the top drawer.” He opens it to show her, and she walks over cautiously and peers in. “Active player information and game notes, other player documentation, templates, letters and info packets we’ve sent out,” he lists, tapping each binder in turn. “The second drawer has all these gathered by year into one binder with dividers. That way we can reference back to them if we need to.” 

“Why would we need to?” Cyrille asks, looking at him curiously. 

“Um,” Jack says. He genuinely isn’t sure, actually, but she’d given him the paperwork to organize, so. “It’s helpful for players we had on the team before? Otherwise not so much, but I guess if someone had a problem with something…”

“Right,” Cyrille says.

“I mean, Sean took such good notes, it would be a shame not to use them,” Jack chances, smiling in a way he hopes communicates that he’s joking.

Cyrille stares at him for a few torturous seconds, then seems to catch on. She snorts. “Of course.” 

She turns to go, pausing at the door to ask if Jack’s going to help set up, and Jack hurries after her. He can’t help but be a bit put out that she never actually thanked him or said he did a good job, but he tries to shake it off. Cyrille isn’t even his actual boss, he doesn’t _really_ need to prove anything to her. 

Jack is watching the kids in dressing room three between the first two games of the day, idly reading over his notes, when he hears Cyrille, on the other side of the room, say, “Gaudy?” Her voice is so alarmed that Jack is moving before he can even think about it.

“Shhh—” Jack breathes when he spots him. Gaudy is wheezing, his face bright red. 

“Did you eat something? Are you choking?” Cyrille is asking. Jack looks around; the other kids have fallen silent and are staring. Gibs, right next to Gaudy, is openly staring with a sandwich clutched in his hand, and Jack abruptly remembers something he read when he was organizing files last night.

“He’s allergic to peanuts,” Jack says. “Where’s his bag?”

Gibs points it out, and Jack digs through the outer pockets until he finds what he’s looking for. Cyrille catches the EpiPen easily when Jack tosses it to her, and she administers it flawlessly. They all wait, tension palpable, until it’s obvious that Gaudy can actually breathe again. The room erupts in loud sighs of relief.

“I didn’t know,” Gibs says, staring down at his sandwich. “Gaudy, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jack reassures him. “You good, Gaudy?”

Gaudy nods. “Sore throat,” he says quietly. “And I’m itchy.” He screws up his nose in annoyance.

“Are your parents still here?” Jack asks.

Gaudy shakes his head.

“I’ll call them, then,” Jack says. “I’ll be right back.”

“The rest of you, get your gear on,” Cyrille adds. There are a few grumbles, but everyone mostly obeys. 

“I don’t get to play?” Gaudy asks, looking crestfallen. Jack suppresses a smile; he figures Gaudy is probably going to be okay. 

Cyrille shakes her head. “You’re going to the hospital, mister.” 

“Ugh,” Gaudy complains. 

— 

On the second last day of training camp, all the coaches stay late after the last practice to finalize the team rosters. They’ve been actively shifting them around and taking notes during the mock games, so there isn’t too much to do other than have the head coaches look over the final lists and make any last minute changes. 

Jack hovers in the back, not too worried about contributing any more than he already has. Coach Leclair hands him the lists near the end of the meeting, already talking to Coach Williams, the A team’s head coach, about his plans for an end-of-summer barbeque. Jack isn’t entirely sure what Coach Leclair wants him to do—file it away? Offer an opinion? He tries to glance to Cyrille for an indication, but she’s facing away from him, talking to one of the A team’s assistant coaches.

Jack looks down at the list. The A team is at the top, and Jack frowns when he spots a name he particularly recognizes. “Uh, Coach Leclair,” he says, “sorry to interrupt, but—”

He stops, caught by the sudden silence and everyone looking at him. Coach Leclair smiles encouragingly. “What is it, Jack?” 

“Um, Gaudy—Armand Gaudette,” Jack says. “He’s on the A roster?” 

Coach Leclair nods. “Yes?”

“I thought he was AA?”

“We thought he’d be better served by at least a season on the A team,” Coach Williams says. 

“I don’t think so,” Jack says. “He might be borderline skill-wise, but his work ethic is hands down AA. Plus he meshes well with a lot of the boys on AA.” 

Coach Leclair looks thoughtful. “He’s eleven, correct? Maybe if he had a year to develop we could—”

“I don’t want him to feel discouraged,” Jack says quickly. He knows everyone is still looking at him, but he can’t think about that if he doesn’t want to give in. “He’s been working hard for this.”

“Working hard doesn’t necessarily translate to talent,” Coach Williams points out.

“No,” Jack agrees, “but in this case I think it helps.” 

“He’d be taking away a spot from one of the other boys on AA,” Coach Leclair says.

“He deserves it,” Jack insists. “I think we’re looking at a kid who will only improve faster the more pressure we put on him.”

Coach Williams raises an eyebrow. “You’d know, hm?” 

Jack shrugs, immediately uncomfortable. “It’s not about me,” he says. “Seriously, I think you’d be making a mistake having Gaudy on your team as it stands. He really doesn’t have as much on-ice chemistry with those kids.” 

Coach Leclair glances at Coach Williams. “I’m willing to go with Jack if it’s all right with you. I trust his judgement.” 

“God knows he’s taken enough notes on the boys,” Cyrille chimes in, voice teasing. Everyone laughs, well acquainted with Jack’s pages and pages of notes. Jack can feel himself turning red. 

“All right,” Coach Williams says. He looks at Jack. “Who are we moving to A to make room, then?” 

Jack scans the list for a minute, then says confidently, “Evan Connors. He could definitely benefit from a slightly less intense team environment.” 

“Connors it is,” Coach Williams agrees. “Make note of those changes, Zimmermann. Anyone else want a look at the lists before we all go get some shut eye?” 

They pass the lists around once more, but no one has any commentary. Jack, as the newest assistant coach, is assigned the honour of being the one to type up the rosters so they can be posted the next day. Jack doesn’t mind that so much. He’s going to need to rearrange his binders a bit as well. 

“Thanks for speaking up today.” Coach Leclair says to Jack when they’re on the way out of the arena. “That’s exactly the kind of insight we hired you for.” 

Jack shrugs it off, uncomfortable with the praise. “No problem,” he says. “See you tomorrow.” 

“See you,” Coach Leclair echoes. 

— 

The last day of training camp is more laidback than the rest had been. Jack makes sure to get there before any of the kids so he can post the new rosters on the doors into the ice area. He hangs out greeting kids for awhile, but then he watches one too many look disappointed when they’re A instead of AA and goes to wait by the ice instead. 

There are nineteen kids on the AA team, and Jack thinks they all must have eaten sugar for breakfast, because they’re _wired_. Even after they’ve been made to skate the hardest drills up Coach Leclair’s sleeve and they’re red-faced and breathing hard, they keep yelling and laughing with each other. 

“Rowdy bunch we’ve picked here,” Coach Leclair says with humour in his voice when they’re shouting at each other during passing drills. 

“At least they get along,” Jack says. 

“Yeah,” Cyrille says icily, “for now.” 

Jack wants to ask if they had problems with kids not getting along in the past or something, but Cyrille doesn’t look like she’s in the mood for questions, and Jack is still treading lightly around her, so he keeps quiet. 

They wrap up early (a reward for good hustle, according to Coach Leclair, but Jack privately thinks he might’ve just been done with the shouting for today). Jack helps collect pucks, disregarding the clump of kids off to the side whispering to each other until one of them breaks off and skates in Jack’s direction. The rest follow at a distance.

“What’s up, JT?” Jack asks. The team clearly wants to ask him something, and JT has either been appointed or volunteered himself to do it. 

“What’s your nickname?” JT asks.

Jack thinks abruptly and painfully of Kent calling him Zimms, soft and fond, and says, “I don’t have one,” before he even really knows what he’s doing. 

JT frowns. “Well, _we_ want to call you Coach Z,” he says. 

“Okay,” Jack says, shrugging. “Sure, call me Coach Z.” 

“Good,” JT says. The rest of the team is giggling and nodding behind him. Jack feels oddly like he’s just been given their seal of approval. 

“So who’s going to help me bring these nets in?” he asks.

Gaudy and Bear immediately volunteer, and Jack shoos the rest of them off to the dressing room. The warm, tight feeling in his chest stays stuck there until well after he gets home. 

— 

The last couple weeks of August pass fairly quickly, with most of Jack’s time occupied by practice and other work-related things. Julie thinks that this job is probably the best thing that could have happened for Jack at this point, and Jack is pretty sure he agrees. He even makes an appearance at Coach Williams’ barbeque, though he feels incredibly awkward, especially when he’s offered a beer and has to decline, and he ducks out early. His parents and Julie tell him that it’s a success that he went at all, but it doesn’t really feel that way. 

He and Cyrille spend a lot of time together, not only at practice but also working on material for the Parent Orientation Night in early September. Jack thinks she might be warming up to him more, but she’s pretty unreadable on a good day and Jack’s not about to ask, so he just worries about it constantly instead. In any case, he certainly wouldn’t say they’re friends, and he’s not entirely sure they’re ever going to be. 

After so much time thinking about and preparing for it, the actual night of Parent Orientation sneaks up on Jack. It’s meant to be an information session to give parents a good idea of what the season is going to be like for both them and their kid; attendance isn’t mandatory, but it is encouraged. (The main form of encouragement is the free food.) They already know some parents won’t come because they know the drill from years of their kid (or kids, depending) playing hockey, but there are a few whose kids just started to play, and still more whose kid only made a competitive team this year. 

Coach Leclair calls the meeting to order right on time with a clap of his hands and a friendly grin. “All right, folks, welcome to the Conquérants Pee-Wee AA family! We’re glad to have you. I’m Josselin Leclair, as I’m sure you know, I do believe I’ve already met most of you. If not, I’m the man your kid’s gonna come home complaining about. That is, if they haven’t already.” 

Jack suppresses a smile, but most of the parents laugh at that, so he didn’t really need to. He awkwardly shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket as Coach Leclair continues. 

“Up here with me I have my assistant coaches, Jack Zimmermann and Cyrille Durand. They do some invaluable things around here, including a lot of behind-the-scenes work in addition to helping out with the kids on-ice.” 

Cyrille waves and says hello, and Jack hurries to copy. His hand gets stuck in his jacket pocket, and he feels like everyone is staring at him as he yanks it out and gives a quick wave.

“They made the PowerPoint presentation you’re about to witness, so if you get bored, I blame them and not my skills as a presenter.” Coach Leclair gives an exaggerated wink, and a few of the parents titter. Jack can still see some of them looking at him. He wishes Coach Leclair hadn’t said that. “If you have any questions, feel free to jump on in. Let’s get started.” 

Jack stands off to the side with Cyrille, watching the presentation intently despite knowing the content inside out. He keeps worrying that things aren’t clear enough, but none of the parents ask questions that aren’t either covered later or somewhat off-topic. 

“That’s about all you need to know for now,” Coach Leclair says at the end of the PowerPoint. “We’ll be sending out newsletters monthly, so keep an eye out. We’ve got this in booklet form for all of you as well. Jack?” 

Jack nods and grabs the stack of booklets from where he’d left it on the table at the front of the room. He starts handing them out as Coach Leclair asks if anyone has any final questions. 

“Uh, yes,” says a lady with blonde ringlets. Jack thinks she might be Germy’s mother, but he isn’t one hundred percent on that. “I was just wondering if you could explain how it is a drug addict came to be in a position of power over our kids?”

There’s an audible silence in the room, and Jack fumbles the booklet he’s handing to Tiger’s mother. Brenda takes it from him carefully, giving him a worried look. Jack wishes he were literally anywhere else.

“I think what Denise means to ask,” Wino’s mother Janet says, “is if you could give us some more background on both your assistant coaches’ qualifications?” 

Before Coach Leclair has a chance to answer, a dad in the back row snorts. “I think we all know enough about Zimmermann.” 

Some of the parents are nodding in agreement. Jack grits his teeth and gives the last booklet to Chicken’s father, who avoids eye contact. 

Jack’s heart is beating too fast in his chest. He makes eye contact with Cyrille as he’s walking back to his seat, and she makes a face that clearly says _well?_ at him. He clears his throat. 

Obviously he needs to say something or risk them all thinking he’s completely incompetent on top of an addict, but he’s starting to have trouble breathing. He turns around and looks at them all when he gets back to the front of the room. “I’m not a drug addict,” he says slowly and quietly, and then, louder: “I’ve never done drugs in my life.” It’s true enough. He’s never done the illegal kind, at least.

The room looks skeptical. “We’re just worried about our kids,” Denise says, her voice sticky sweet. Jack digs his fingernails into his palms and concentrates on keeping his breathing steady. Cyrille is looking at him disbelievingly, and that hurts more than the rest of them. He thought he’d made progress with her, but she clearly still thinks he’s the cocaine addict she’d assumed on the first day.

“And I’m here to relieve those worries,” Coach Leclair says, his tone calm and sure. “I want you all to know that I select my staff very carefully. Cyrille is an accomplished figure skater and has a great track record with teaching both young figure skaters and hockey players. Similarly, Jack is a highly skilled hockey player, one with near-professional experience under his belt, and there’s nobody who can relate to these kids better than someone who, mere years ago, was exactly where they are. I would not have picked him for this position if I didn’t think that he was the right person, both personally and professionally, to help your kids reach their full potential.” He pauses, seeming to look each and every parent in the eye. “That’s what we all want, isn’t it?” 

Most of the parents nod. They seem pretty subdued by Coach Leclair’s speech. Jack unfurls his clenched hands and breathes out. 

“I think we can all agree that everyone deserves a second chance,” Coach Leclair adds, smiling at Jack. Jack tries to smile back, but it feels fake. 

“Anyway, that’s all for tonight,” Coach Leclair says. “Please let me know if you’d like to schedule an appointment with me to discuss anything at all related to the team.”

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Cyrille says, starting to usher them out and shaking people’s hands as they leave. 

A few parents try to lag behind, but Cyrille and Coach Leclair are quick to end their attempts at conversation, and eventually they’re all gone. Jack stares at the empty chairs and bites the inside of his lip. “Thank you,” he says to Coach Leclair, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

Coach Leclair slaps him on the back and smiles reassuringly. “Nothing that wasn’t true, son,” he says. Jack doubts that, but he appreciates the lie all the same. “Get home and get some rest, will you? Cyrille and I can wrap up here.” 

“Yes, sir,” Jack agrees. “See you. You, too, Cyrille.”

Cyrille waves, and Jack leaves before she can say anything. He doesn’t think she’d have anything he wants to hear. 

He still feels panicked when he gets out to his truck, and he sits in the front seat doing breathing exercises until he realizes that there are a few parents still hanging around the parking lot looking his way. He drives slowly on the way home, aware that he shouldn’t be on the road when he’s this anxious. He should have called one of his parents to come pick him up. He should have been able to say something to defend himself better. He shouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place. 

He gets home safe and ignores his mother asking how his day was in favour of stalking up to his bedroom. He’s going to regret that later, but for now he doesn’t care. 

A few months ago, Jack would have dealt with feeling like this by having a drink or taking a pill or both. Now, he lies on his bed, closes his eyes, and does his best to think of nothing but his breathing until he falls asleep. 

— 

“What do you think made Coach Leclair say that?” Julie asks. 

Jack stares at the clock on the office wall and wishes the second hand would move faster. He would rather be anywhere else, including back in that room with the parents.

“Trying to cover himself, probably,” Jack says. “It doesn’t matter, really.” 

“If you want to talk about something else, we can,” Julie says patiently. Jack hates her. “But I disagree. I think something that results in you panicking is something that matters.” 

“I didn’t panic because of Coach Leclair,” Jack points out. 

“Mmm,” Julie acknowledges. “We’ve discussed how the public’s perception of your breakdown affects you in the past, though. Did you have anything new to add, or was it more of the same?” 

Jack tries to come up with something, but she's right, nothing's changed. "The same," he says begrudgingly. It's frustrating to be perceived this way, but unless he wants to tell the entire world what really happened—and he doesn't—there's nothing to do but deal with it.

“Okay,” Julie says. “You’ve also said before that you don’t think Coach Leclair would have hired you if he thought you were a drug addict. Is that still true?”

“Yeah.” 

“But you think he didn’t mean what he told the parents about you?”

Jack shrugs. 

“Do you think he’s wrong and you’re not the right person to help those kids?” 

Jack shrugs again. 

Julie waits, and when Jack doesn’t say anything, she sits back in her chair. “Okay,” she says, “we’re going to do an exercise.” 

Jack braces himself. Exercises are always hard and generally involve Jack sitting in silence for a long time trying to come up with the solution to the provided scenario that he thinks Julie wants to hear. He’s never sure if he got it right. 

“I want you to think about yourself when you were eleven or twelve,” Julie says. “Close your eyes and picture that kid.” 

Jack feels stupid, but he closes his eyes and pictures himself at twelve. He’s not a whole lot different from how he is now—shorter and fatter, but just as awkward and unsure of himself.

“Imagine that kid is on the team you’re coaching,” Julie continues. Jack immediately thinks about his younger self on the ice with a nervous expression and a death grip on his hockey stick. “What would you say to him?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack says. 

“Take your time,” Julie says. She seems to realize that Jack needs more guidance, though, because she adds, “What kind of notes would you take on him?” 

“Great skater,” Jack says immediately. “Seems sure of himself on the ice. He has soft hands and is good at creating scoring chances.”

“What about in relation to the other players?” 

Jack pauses, sensing a trap, then says, “He’s a real leader.” It’s verbatim from every coach evaluation sheet ever written about him. 

“Really? Would he say so?” 

Jack shakes his head rather than having to admit out loud that he’s never seen himself as a leader.

“Why not?” 

“He doesn’t really… get along with his teammates? I mean, he does, I think everyone would say good things about him, but he doesn’t feel like they’re his friends,” Jack says. He shifts uncomfortably on the couch. He’s glad his eyes are closed so he doesn’t have to see Julie’s expression. 

“Do you think leadership is about being friends with everyone?” Julie asks. 

Jack shrugs. He thinks she’s looking for a no, but he doesn’t see how friendship isn’t relevant. 

“Okay, who are some people in your life that you consider good leaders?” 

“Uh, my parents? Coach Leclair, obviously.” Jack thinks about Kent, but saying that would hurt too much. “My history teacher,” he says instead.

“What do you admire about them? Is it just that everyone likes them, or is there something else?” 

Jack frowns. “I guess, uh, they’re smart?” he says. “They know how to get people to work together so that things happen. I mean, happen the way they should.” 

“Would you say that's something you're good at? When you tell people what to do, do they listen, and does it turn out well?”

Jack contemplates all the things he could do instead of answering that question. He could jump out the window. He could ask Julie if _she’s_ good at those things. He could start trashing Julie’s office. He could smash that _fucking_ clock. He could just up and leave. 

He stays sitting. “I guess so,” he says. 

“So, with that in mind,” Julie says, “if you were coaching your younger self, what would you tell him?” 

Jack still doesn’t know what she wants him to say. He shrugs. 

“Would you tell him, a twelve year old, that if he screws up he doesn’t deserve a second chance?” 

Jack shakes his head.

“Would you tell him that his life is going to be over at eighteen? That he’s not ever going to amount to anything?” 

“No,” Jack says. He can’t imagine saying that to any of the kids on his team. 

“Why not? Don’t you think it’s true?” 

“He’s just a kid,” Jack protests, opening his eyes.

Julie is looking at him with an unreadable expression. Jack wants to throw up. “How is it any different from telling yourself those things?” she asks. “If he doesn’t deserve that, why do you?” 

“He’s just a kid,” Jack repeats, but it’s lacking conviction. 

“Think about that for your homework,” Julie says. “I think we’re done for today.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Kent Parson**  
First official game was tonite… nhl’s not so scary  
12:53 AM | 10-04-09

**Kent Parson**  
Wouldve been better with u tho  
1:10 AM | 10-04-09

— 

The first official game of the season is on a Saturday in late September. It’s a home game against the Grenadiers, and Jack is resigned to find that he has the same pre-game lump in his throat as always even though he’s not playing. 

He’s invested in the outcome, though, that’s for damn sure. They’ve been working hard in practice to get the kids ready for their first game, but they won’t really know how well they’ve been doing until the game is over. A real game, one that counts toward season standings, is a lot more pressure than a scrimmage in practice or a house club game. 

The dressing room is buzzing with nerves and excitement. “Are there a lot of people watching?” Germy asks Jack. 

Jack shrugs. The stands aren’t full, but it’s not just parents out there, either. “A fair number?” he says. 

Germy nods. Jack isn’t sure whether he’s pleased about that or nervous. Across from Germy, Duck looks like he might throw up with nerves. Jack is about to say one of his standard reassuring things, but then he realizes Cyrille is already crouching down beside him, clearly helping him through a breathing exercise. Jack quickly looks away.

It’s no wonder Duck is nervous; he, Chicken, and Lion are the starting line, with Tiger and Bear on defence and Rebel in the net. They’d all been excited when Coach Leclair told them, but Jack can see it sinking in now. 

Jack checks his watch and clears his throat. “All right, boys,” he says loudly to get their attention. “Let’s get out there and show them what we’re made of, yeah?” 

The team all cheer and start filing out of the room. In a classic captain move, Bear stands at the door and fistbumps everyone as they pass. He has a few more complicated handshakes that he does with other boys that are back on the team for their second year. Jack watches him knock helmets with JT and ignores the twist of his stomach.

“Ready?” Jack asks when JT has gone ahead, holding up his fist.

Bear bumps it. “We’ll crush ‘em,” he says, grinning. Jack smiles back. 

The opening faceoff by no means determines the game, but Jack’s heart drops when Chicken loses it anyway. The Grenadiers score first, one of their defencemen tipping one right between the post and Rebel’s stick. Jack swears under his breath, and Cyrille gives him a disapproving look. Jack immediately apologizes. 

Things don’t exactly improve. The Conquérants’ defence isn’t half bad after the first goal, but the team as a whole are out of touch with each other, botching easy passes and generally giving off the appearance of loitering around the ice rather than playing the game. Garden manages to score off an assist from Jonesy with only a couple minutes left in the first, and Jack allows himself to hope that and a pep talk during the intermission can turn the game around.

Unfortunately, the second period is even more of a disaster. The Grenadiers score three times, and one of the goals is on a breakaway that makes Jack want to throw his clipboard. He scribbles incoherently about defending on the opposition’s breakout play instead. 

The Grenadiers fall apart in the third, and even though Duck scores on an assist from Tiger with thirteen minutes left in the frame, the Conquérants don’t make up the difference. The final result is 4-2 and a dressing room full of horribly quiet disappointed preteens. 

“Fuck this,” Monty says, dropping his stick and sitting down hard in his spot along the wall. “That was so shitty.” 

“Don’t swear,” Cyrille says automatically. 

“He’s right, though,” Grenzy says. “We were awful.” 

Jack can see others nodding in agreement. He wishes he could contradict them, but he really can’t. He’s seen them play better by leaps and bounds in scrimmages, and it wasn’t as if they were just outplayed by the Grenadiers. They barely put up a fight, and it hurts in a way that Jack really wasn’t expecting it to. He feels stupidly personally responsible in the same way he did when his team lost games last season.

Coach Leclair comes into the room and looks around with the air of a ship captain surveying the wreckage after a storm. “Well, boys,” he says, “that wasn’t the start to the season that we wanted, was it?” 

There are a few grumbles and a lot of heads shaking in answer.

“Desjardins, Bolduc,” Coach Leclair says, pointing at each of them in turn, “good job getting us on that board.” 

“Yeah, buddy!” Roddy yells from between them, slapping them both on the shoulder. The team all laughs.

“That said, I want to put this behind us,” Coach Leclair continues. “We’re going to go over what we did wrong at practice, but for now I just want to remind you that one game is not the be-all end-all. We have thirty-three games to go, and I want us to improve with each one. We were a mess out there, but so was the other team, and all we can do is be less of a mess next time.”

He pauses and looks around. “I want you all to remember that at the end of the day, hockey is about having fun. If you’re not having fun out there, that’s when we have a problem. You hear me?”

“Yes, Coach!” the room choruses.

“Good. Now get changed and get out of here. I’ll see you Monday.”

Just like that, the team is almost entirely back to their energetic selves, chirping and laughing with each other. It’s obviously not a permanent fix, and not all of them are smiling, but Jack is struck by how Coach Leclair knew exactly what to say. 

It was nothing like what Jack has heard from his coaches in recent years, and now that he’s heard it, it seems obvious in a way it never did before that this isn’t the same hockey he’s been playing. On this ice, for this team, even at their relatively elite level, the love of the game is the most important thing. The Conquérants could be at the bottom of the standings, but if every single player was doing his best and having the time of his life, Jack and all the other staff would have done their jobs.

“You good, Jack?” Coach Leclair asks, clapping a hand on Jack’s shoulder and raising his eyebrows questioningly. “You look a bit…” He waves his other hand in a way that Jack is pretty sure communicates nothing. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jack says. “Just… good speech, Coach.”

Coach Leclair’s smile takes over his entire face. The crinkles by his eyes remind Jack overwhelmingly of his dad. “Thank you,” he says. “It’s important to not let them get down on themselves, you know?” 

Jack nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

— 

Jack heads straight for the kitchen when he gets home. His dad is standing in front of the open refrigerator, contemplating a container of something. He looks up when Jack walks in.

“Hey, Jack,” he says, closing the container and putting it back in the fridge. “How was work?”

Jack shrugs. “We lost,” he says.

Bob frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He looks like he wants to say something else but is stopping himself.

“It’s fine, we’ll bounce back. The kids had fun,” Jack says. He hesitates, then adds, “I kind of… forgot that hockey is supposed to be fun.”

He’s expecting his dad to be confused, but Bob nods. “I’ve been there. Actually, you kind of taught me that when you were a kid.”

Jack pauses, hand outstretched toward the fridge. “I did?”

Bob nods. “It had just been my job for so long, you know? But you were so cute with your little stick. You got so happy just hitting the puck, never mind if it went in the net. I’d forgotten that goals weren’t really the point.” He laughs, clearly lost in the memory.

“Oh,” Jack says. It’s so exactly what he’s been thinking that he doesn’t know what to say. He opens the fridge so that he doesn’t have to look at his dad.

“I never wanted it to stop being fun for you,” Bob says seriously. When Jack glances at him, he’s frowning. “I’m sorry that it happened anyway.”

Jack shakes his head. “It _is_ fun,” he says, moving containers around without really looking at them. “I love hockey.”

“Never doubted that you love it,” Bob says. “But you don’t have to lie. I know it was too much everything to be fun anymore.”

“Well,” Jack says slowly, “hopefully soon it’ll be the truth.” He looks over at Bob and smiles. “And hey—it must be pretty fun to win the cup.”

Bob smiles back. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It hurts like hell to get there, but that just makes victory sweeter.”

Jack doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just nods. He grabs the largest container out of the fridge and holds it up. “Want some of the leftover spaghetti?” he asks.

“Well… we’d better not let your mother see us ruining our supper,” Bob says.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Jack says.

“You got yourself a deal,” Bob says, holding out a hand. They shake on it. 

— 

For all minor hockey is about loving the game, the Conquérants are still in a competitive league. Practice on Monday is not, to say the least, a cakewalk. Even worse than that is the off-ice conditioning on Tuesday—Cyrille is in charge, and she is _ruthless_. 

Jack does the exercises along with the kids in a show of solidarity or to motivate them or something. Really the logic had been that he didn’t want to stand around just watching. He starts to regret that somewhere after the intense stretching of what felt like every muscle in his body and three-quarters of the way through running suicides. 

“I feel like shit,” Monty says from where he’s collapsed on the gym floor after the final set.

“Same, bro,” JT says. He’s leaning against the wall, breathing hard.

Jack swipes a hand through his hair and makes a face when it comes away sweaty. He wipes his hand on his shorts and thinks about how he should probably up his workout routine a bit if he’s going to keep doing conditioning along with the team. Especially if it’s always like this. 

“Take a lap for swearing, Dumont,” Cyrille says mildly. “The rest of you, spread out across the floor, three lines of six.”

Monty lets out a loud groan, but at least he rolls over and gets to his feet to run the additional lap without more protest than that. Everyone else drags themselves into formation in the center of the gym. Jack hovers awkwardly, unsure where to stand.

“Jack, up here with me,” Cyrille says. “All right, boys, now that you’re warmed up—”

There’s an affronted squawk of “Warmed up?!” from the right side of the gym that Cyrille ignores.

“—it’s time for plyometrics.”

The reaction is a mixture of confusion and acting like Cyrille just said they were all about to walk into a fire. Jack watches Bear and JT both flinch and roll their eyes at each other. Behind them, Lion mouths _‘Plyometrics?’_ at Rebel, who shrugs. 

Jack has done plyometrics before—they’re incredibly useful for training muscles to increase explosive power, which is important for hockey—and it’s been rough but not awful. Cyrille’s carefully engineered series of jump exercises, however, is decidedly brutal. She gives them the rundown of what they’re going to do, demonstrating each jump as she goes, and by the time she’s finished Jack has realized just why their warmup was so extensive. 

Cyrille does the first set with them, and then she leaves Jack to lead them and wanders through the boys, correcting form and yelling at them to pick it up. Halfway through, she switches out with Jack. He raises an eyebrow, unsure, when she suggests it, but she waves him off. 

“Knees together,” Jack tells Gaudy as he’s doing a push-up. “And knees up,” he adds, louder, as they all do a tuck jump. “Let’s go, boys!” 

He keeps yelling encouragement and corrections as he circles the gym, watching their form. Near the end the boys start to visibly struggle, and Jack ramps up his enthusiasm to compensate. “I want energy! Final stretch, can’t slow down now.” He walks past Chicken and nods with approval at Chicken’s perfectly executed jumps. He’s not nearly as tired as anyone around him, which Jack takes to mean he hasn’t been going as hard as he can—and even if that’s harder than everyone else, Chicken still needs to push himself. “Especially you, Chicken,” Jack barks. “Make it mean something!” 

Everyone is red faced by the end of it, even Cyrille. Molly dramatically flops to the ground, curls flying everywhere and his hand over his heart, and a few of the boys follow suit, while others rest their hands on their knees. Lion starts doing side stretches and then just stays there, tilted to one side. Grenzy pokes him, and Lion doesn’t react. 

Cyrille puts her hands on her hips and surveys them all. “This is what it takes to win,” she says. “Work hard in here, work hard on the ice, get results. You feel that burn? It’s going to hurt a hell of a lot better when you’re a winner because of it.”

“Whoo, winning,” Wino says, pumping his fist lazily. A few of the boys laugh.

“That’s right, Lavigne,” Cyrille says, pointing at him emphatically. “We’re going to get better, and we’re going to _win_ , you got me?” 

Bear leads the chorus of “got it!” that follows. 

“Good. Ten minute water break, then back in the middle circle,” Cyrille says. “We’ve still got thirty minutes before we’re out of here.”

The relieved sighs are almost comical. Jack smiles at Cyrille. “That was a good speech,” he says. “And a good workout. Does it get worse?” 

“Nah,” Cyrille says. “That was the worst of it. What, you tired?” 

“No,” Jack says quickly, then belatedly realizes that the slant of Cyrille’s eyebrows probably means she was joking. “I mean, haha.” 

“Haha,” Cyrille repeats back to him. “Get some water in you, Zimmermann.” 

Jack feels like an idiot, but Cyrille cracks a smile and punches him in the shoulder as she walks past, so it’s not all bad. 

—

When he’s looking for a place to store the game tape they’ve so far compiled this year, Jack discovers that the office computer has a folder with a mess of shaky digital camera footage of who knows what minor hockey games. He stares at the list of files named with strings of numbers, sighs, and accepts his fate.

Thankfully, he manages to work out that he can find when the file was created in the properties, and he’s able to determine what age group and teams they are within a couple minutes of watching them. He sorts them into folders by age and painstakingly hunt-and-pecks his way through renaming the files.

He opens a file from that March that starts a few minutes into the game, which is never ideal because it’s after the teams have been introduced, so Jack has to squint at their jerseys and try to guess that way. Jack spots a number five in blue and yellow skating out at a line change and pauses the video, leaning closer to the screen like that will make the image clearer. It doesn’t, but he can just barely make out the familiar HUARD over the number. It’s definitely Lion, so this must be the Atom team he played on last season. 

Jack could use that information to check Lion’s records and see what team he was on, and then the schedule to see what games they played in March, but he clicks play on the video again out of curiosity. Lion’s center passes him the puck only a few seconds later, and Lion goes streaking up the ice, deking around two defencemen like they’re standing still before faking out the goalie with a dangle and wristing it in for a goal. He makes it look so effortless that Jack’s breath catches in his throat, thinking of Kent doing the same thing a hundred times.

He hits the close button in the middle of Lion’s team’s celly, his heart beating fast. He stares for a moment, then, against his better judgement, opens the video back up and watches the play again. Lion is a great player—they gave him an A this season more for that reason than his off-ice contributions, which is why JT has his—so it’s more a question of inconsistency due to youth than any sort of luck that Jack’s never seen him execute something that well in real life. In retrospect, though, Lion definitely has that ability to make things look easy. 

Making hockey look effortless is what everyone always says when it comes to Kent. It’s not an exaggeration; Jack has been on the ice with him when he does it too many times to ever think so. Seeing that same quality in one of the kids he’s coaching is unexpected, though it maybe shouldn’t have been.

Lion kind of looks like a younger Kent as well, though his hair is slightly darker. Jack closes the video for the second time, reminds himself that Kent isn’t in his life anymore for a reason, and goes to find out what team Lion played for. He can’t think like that if he ever wants to be able to look at Lion without getting upset because he misses Kent. This is just going to have to be another thing Jack tells Julie and then suppresses so he can keep on functioning. 

—

The team loses a few more games over the next couple weeks, but they win some, too. Jack goes to practices and games and conditioning on top of his own workout. He has supper with his parents every day. He takes his medication, he goes to therapy every week, and he even makes an attempt to think about the things Julie tells him to. His life is busy enough that he doesn’t get bored, but it’s not too overwhelming. Jack tentatively allows himself to feel proud of how well he’s doing. 

Of course, on a non-descript Thursday in early October, he wakes up to his alarm screeching at him, hits the snooze button, stares at the ceiling, and immediately feels anxiety pressing down on his chest like an particularly enthusiastic old friend. He thinks about everything he has to do today—nothing out of the norm, there’s just practice in the afternoon, which should be pretty low key—and dreads getting out of bed. 

Jack turns his alarm all the way off and drags himself out anyway, because he knows the worst thing he could do is lie around moping. He goes through his regular morning routine: working out, showering, making small talk with his mom while they both eat breakfast, taking his medication. The bad mood lingers through it all. He tries to come up with some plays, but he ends up getting frustrated at how nothing seems to work and takes a nap instead. 

By the time he’s actually at practice, he’s annoyed with himself on top of everything else. He just wants to get it together and feel normal. He does his best to power through it, but he finds he can’t bring himself to joke with the boys the way he usually does. He sticks to blowing his whistle and only talking when he has to. He resolutely ignores the appraising look Cyrille shoots his way when he turns introducing a new passing drill at the beginning of practice over to her, even as his stomach flips with the fear of judgement. 

They finish practice with scrimmage, and it’s a glorified mess. No one appears to be even trying to do anything resembling an actual play, and the game is moving so slow that Jack is sure any of them with their butts in gear could skate the length of the ice twice before the puck reached the other end. 

“Pick it up this time, boys,” Jack says before dropping the puck between Chicken and Germy. Germy wins the faceoff and picks the puck up from where it bounces off the boards. Chicken skates after him and steals it away, only for Germy to steal it back again. They do that a few more times, the rest of their respective teams shouting at them to pass, before Jack blows his whistle out of sheer frustration. 

“What are you _doing_?” he demands. “That might fly in road hockey, but we’re trying to play a serious game of scrimmage here. It’s not one-on-one, either pass the puck or skate down the ice like you mean it.” 

Everyone is staring at Jack. He takes a deep breath and adds, “That goes for all of you.” He can’t help but look at Chicken, though. Chicken is good enough that he should know better than to dick around during practice. Jack certainly did at his age. “You’re better than this,” he says, and from the way Chicken’s eyes get even bigger than usual, Jack knows he got that it was directed at him. 

He checks his watch. “Okay, three more minutes, and they had better be good ones.” He holds out a hand, and Germy flips the puck up into his glove and gives it to him. 

The last three minutes aren’t a total write-off, at least. It’s probably the only thing that’s gone right in Jack’s entire day. He’s never been so relieved for practice to be over. 

“Hey,” Cyrille says, leaning against the doorway into the office, both her arms and legs crossed. 

Jack looks up from where he was filing his notes. “Hi,” he says.

“You busy?” Cyrille asks. 

Jack shakes his head. “I was going to work on the application for the tournament in February, but looks like we’re just waiting for some registration payments from parents, so I was about to go home, I think.”

Cyrille nods. “So I have a dog,” she says, apropos of nothing, “and I need to take him for a walk.”

Jack waits to see if she’s going to explain why that’s relevant, and when she doesn’t, says, “Okay?”

“Do you want to come with me? I could use the company.”

Jack frowns. Cyrille has never offered to hang out with him outside of work before, and he has no idea why she’d pick today, of all days, to do so. He’s really not much for company. “I don’t think so, I—”

“Come on,” Cyrille wheedles. “You’ll be doing me a favour. I get bored on my own.” 

Jack weighs his options. If he goes home, he won’t have anything to do and will probably end up napping again before supper, and then he’ll be mad at himself for napping and take it out on his parents. At least this way he’ll have someone to talk to, even if he’s not sure that someone actually likes him. Besides, Julie is always politely suggesting that he try to make some friends. She’ll love this. 

“Okay,” Jack agrees. “Now?”

“Yeah, the last of the stragglers just cleared out,” Cyrille says. “We can take my car, there’s a park near my house. I’ll bring you back here later.” 

Jack follows Cyrille out to her car. It’s a nice evening, warm for mid-October but with enough wind that Jack is glad for his coat. He wonders how long Cyrille is expecting this walk to be and considers asking, then decides against it. It’s not that important as long as he calls his parents if he’s going to be late.

He feels immediately awkward once they’re actually in Cyrille’s car. He feels like he should compliment it or something, but he doesn’t know the first thing about cars. 

“The dashboard telling you a secret?” Cyrille asks after they’ve been driving for a minute.

Jack jumps. “Uh, no. What?”

“You were staring at it pretty intently,” Cyrille says, shrugging. 

“It’s, uh, nice,” Jack says. 

Cyrille laughs. “Okay, sure. Do you want to pick music? There are CDs in the glove box.”

Jack frowns. He doesn’t really trust himself to pick music. “How long of a drive is it?” 

“Twenty minutes tops,” Cyrille says. 

Farther away than where Jack lives, he notes, and long enough that silence would probably be awkward. He presses what looks like a power button on the console and sighs with relief when the radio cuts in, an enthusiastic announcer going on about something in English. “This’ll do?” Jack asks.

“Sure,” Cyrille says. 

Cyrille lives with her parents in a nice suburban home, complete with over-the-top Thanksgiving decorations. Jack raises an eyebrow at them, and Cyrille rolls her eyes. “My dad is really into holidays,” she explains. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Jack has no choice but to awkwardly fidget in the car for the few minutes it takes for Cyrille to go inside and come back with a small golden-haired dog. The dog bounds down the walkway in front of Cyrille, tugging at the leash. When Cyrille opens the car door, he immediately hops up into it, and Jack finds himself with a lapful of wiggling dog a second later. 

“Here,” Cyrille says, shoving the end of the leash into Jack’s hand and sliding into the car. “Jack, meet Axel.” 

Axel is busy thoroughly licking Jack’s face, so he doesn’t dare respond. He manages to wrestle Axel away from his face and wipe it off on his sleeve. Cyrille is looking over at him, clearly amused. “Happy dog,” Jack says dumbly.

“Yeah, he likes new people, car rides, and walks, so this is blowing his mind,” Cyrille says. She reaches over to scratch Axel’s head and puts on a high-pitched cooing tone that yesterday Jack probably would have said she wasn’t capable of. “Isn’t it? Yes, it is. Good puppy.” 

Axel barks softly and wags his tail. Even Jack, generally neutral toward dogs as he is, has to admit that it’s pretty adorable. 

Cyrille does up her seatbelt and starts the car. “Keep him sitting over there for me, yeah?” Jack must look alarmed, because Cyrille laughs and adds, “Just hold on to his harness, it’ll be fine.” 

Jack does as she says, keeping one hand fisted around the harness too tightly considering Axel sits still for the entire five minute drive, staring out the window and panting happily. When they get to the park, Cyrille takes the leash back and Axel scrambles over her lap to get out of the car, Cyrille following after. Jack fumbles with first his seatbelt and then the door handle, but he manages to get out of the car without making too much of a fool of himself. 

“We usually take this trail,” Cyrille says, gesturing at one of the smaller gravel walking paths just off the parking lot. Jack nods and jogs a little to catch up with her. He puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket and wonders if he’s supposed to be making small talk. If he is, he doesn’t know what to say. 

Axel is sniffing everything along the path in front of them, stopping short every so often when he hits the end of his leash and looking back at them reproachfully until there’s enough slack for him to run ahead again. The silence and the walking is theoretically pretty nice, but Jack can’t stop glancing over at Cyrille to check if she looks annoyed or bored or what. He’s never sure, and eventually he can’t take it anymore. 

“So, practice today—”

Cyrille shoots Jack a look so glacial it stops him mid-sentence. “Don’t talk about work,” she says.

“Oh,” Jack says dumbly.

“I just mean because you seem stressed,” Cyrille says. “No need to look like I just murdered Axel in front of you.” 

“Oh,” Jack repeats. He nods. “Okay.” Not being able to talk about work leaves him at a loss, though. He fumbles for something. “So, um… what kind of dog is he?” 

“A goldendoodle,” Cyrille says. 

That doesn’t really mean anything to Jack. “Pretty cute,” he says, watching Axel thoroughly sniff the bottom of a tree. 

“Yeah, I think so,” Cyrille agrees. “Do you have any pets?” 

“Me? Oh, no,” Jack says. He shrugs awkwardly. “We never had time, and I never really wanted one anyway.” 

Cyrille raises her eyebrows. “Not even when you were little?” 

Jack shakes his head. “I just wanted to play hockey.” 

“Yikes,” Cyrille says. She snaps her gum and then adds, “That seems so weird to me, a little kid never wanting a pet.” 

“Well, I started skating when I was really little,” Jack says defensively. “And I always had practice and away games and things.” 

“I get it,” Cyrille says. “Not practical. Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have wanted to.”

Jack shrugs. “I guess.”

There’s a lull as they go around a bend in the trail and Axel attempts to single handedly take down a squirrel by throwing himself into the bushes. Cyrille hauls him back and rolls her eyes at Jack. “How little is really little?” she asks. 

“What?” Jack says, confused.

“You said you started skating when you were really little. How little?” 

“Oh,” Jack says, feeling dumb that he didn’t get that. “Like, younger than three.” 

“Wow,” Cyrille says. “I know most pro hockey players start pretty young, but it’s still… I dunno, that’s such a small human to put knife boots on.” 

“I’m not a pro hockey player,” Jack says, the ache of it tugging in his chest. He’d barely heard the rest of Cyrille’s sentence. 

Cyrille gives him a hard look and doesn’t say anything. She blows a bubble with her gum and looks away. Jack wishes he hadn’t said that. He’s always ruining simple things without thinking.

“When did you start skating, then?” he asks. His tone is slightly accusing, but he can’t figure out how to stop it. 

“Grade one,” Cyrille says. “You know when they do skating for gym class?” 

She seems to be waiting for an answer, so Jack nods.

“I had to borrow skates and a helmet from the school because I didn’t have any,” she continues. “They were gross looking and I didn’t want to put them on, but one of the teaching assistants convinced me to. I fell over as soon as I got on the ice, but then they got me one of those metal push things, and I just—” She breaks off and shrugs. “I thought it was super fun even though I was by far the worst skater. I went home that day and told my parents that I wanted to skate all the time, and once I begged for a few days they enrolled me in figure skating lessons. Turns out I was good at it after some practice.”

“That’s a good story,” Jack says. “You remember all that?” 

“Yeah, mostly,” Cyrille says. “You probably don’t remember the first time you skated, huh?” 

Jack shakes his head. “I think my earliest memory is falling down while skating with my dad, but that wasn’t the first time,” he says. 

“Not a bad trade off, though,” Cyrille says. “It must be nice to have parents who really care. I had to convince mine to come to year-end carnivals.”

That option looks pretty good to Jack from where he’s standing. He shrugs and concentrates on the rocks he’s kicking out of his way. 

“I guess it would also suck to have them care too much, though,” Cyrille says after it’s been long enough that it’s obvious Jack isn’t going to respond.

Jack jerks his head up to stare at her. She smiles tentatively at him, one eyebrow raised in question. “Uh,” Jack says, swallowing in an attempt to wet his throat, “yeah. It, uh, would.”

“Do you know why I dragged you out here?” Cyrille asks abruptly.

Jack shrugs. He thinks it probably has something to do with how he’d been acting at practice, but he doesn’t want to assume that and be wrong. There’s no real reason to think that Cyrille pays that much attention to his mood. “No, I don’t know,” he says. 

“Seemed like you needed to get out of your head,” Cyrille says nonchalantly. “You’re not usually that much of a dick to the boys, so I figured you were having a rough day. That kinda shit only gets worse if you let it stew, y’know?” 

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. It shouldn’t be so shocking to have his assumption confirmed, but it really is. “Um… thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Cyrille says. “You wanna go get food after this or nah?”

She offers in such a casual way that it makes Jack feel like ‘nah’ really is an option. It occurs to Jack that after this there’s not really a question that Cyrille actually seems to like him. It’s more than he’s been hoping for. “No, thanks,” Jack says. “I have to meet my parents.”

Cyrille nods. “Okay.”

“Maybe another time,” Jack says impulsively, praying he won’t live to regret it.

Cyrille beams at him. “Maybe,” she says. It’s exactly the right response. 

—

That Friday night, they have an away game against the Intrépide. It’s a fast one right out of the gate, the teams practically taking it in turns to score goals. Jack and Coach Leclair spend the entire game fruitlessly yelling “Defence!” at the players on the ice and scribbling defensive plays they’ve worked on in practice on the whiteboard during intermissions, to understanding nods from the kids and absolutely no results once the game starts again.

Come the final minute of the game, they’re tied 7-7. They’d pulled Rebel halfway through the second just because he looked exhausted, so Mountie is in net. He looks ready for the game to be over, and Jack really can’t blame him. 

“Okay,” Coach Leclair barks during the stoppage before a faceoff. “Gagné’s line, you’re up.” 

Chicken practically throws himself over the boards, Lion and Duck on either side of him. Tiger and Bear are just behind them, and Germy’s line takes their places on the bench. They square off in the defensive zone, and Jack braces himself for a potential Intrépide goal. 

Chicken loses the faceoff, and the Intrépide’s centre drives toward the net. Bear and Tiger are right where they should be, though, and Tiger blocks a shot that Lion snags the rebound of. 

As Lion skates it through the neutral zone, Jack can see Chicken pointing toward the Intrépide net and yelling something, and Duck takes off toward it. The opposition converges on Lion, and just past the blue line, he makes the smart choice to send the puck cross-ice to Chicken, who skates around the one defender in his space and straight at the net. 

Jack—along with what feels like the entire arena—holds his breath, expecting Chicken to take the shot even with the goalie staring him down. Instead, Chicken blows past the net and passes to Duck, who buries the puck in the back of the wide open net. 

The arena erupts in cheers. Bergey leaps up from his customary spot on the bench in front of Jack and nearly hits Jack in the face with his stick, then turns around and yells an apology. 

There’s some time left on the clock, but it’s not enough for anything of note to happen before the buzzer to signal the end of the game goes off, and the entire team crowds onto the ice to celebrate the win. Jack grins despite himself. Defensive mess or not, that was some entertaining hockey. 

Chicken, buried in his teammates’ hugs as he is, has to fight his way out and over to the bench. He’s looking at Jack as he steps off the ice, beaming from behind his face mask. Jack offers him a nod and a fistbump, just like he does after every game they win. 

They win Saturday’s game against the Dynamiques as well, and consequently everyone is in high spirits at practice on Monday. The boys take a few minutes longer than normal to settle into seriousness, but thankfully they get there eventually. 

They’re running a new shooting drill that focuses on protecting the puck. The boys are lined up on either of side of the rink, and Jack and Coach Leclair take it in turns to blow the whistle to signal the next skater to pick up the puck from behind the net, bring it around, and shoot before joining the line opposite the one they were in. 

Coach Leclair blows his whistle, and Jack watches as Chicken executes the drill. He has the correct heel-to-heel skating movement down, which is what most of them are having trouble with, but he has his eyes on the ice the whole time. “Keep your head up!” Jack yells to him before blowing his whistle for Monty to go. 

When Chicken reaches the front of Jack’s line, he surprises Jack by skating up to him while Gibs is still taking his turn. “Can I talk to you after practice?” he asks. His expression is grave.

“Sure,” Jack says. He intends to add an indication that it’s Chicken’s turn, but he skates off before he can. This time, he keeps his eyes on the goal. Jack nods approvingly to himself; awareness is incredibly important for Chicken to avoid being creamed in an open-ice hit once he graduates to Bantam and checking is allowed.

Jack almost thinks he missed Chicken after practice and didn’t get to talk to him after all, but when he sticks his head into the dressing room to do a check, Chicken is the only one still there. “Hey,” Jack says, stepping into the room. “You still want to talk to me?” 

“Yes,” Chicken says, standing up even though one of his shoes is untied. “I—” He stops abruptly and frowns. Jack waits, unsure what to say. Platitudes like ‘you can tell me anything’ keep popping into his head, but Chicken looks more annoyed than anything. He nervously pushes the hair that’s flopping over his forehead back and blurts out, “Why do you hate me?” 

Jack immediately starts to protest, but Chicken barrels on. “Did I do something wrong? You’re always yelling at me, and you never tell me I did a good job even when I _did_ , everyone said so except you, and—” He pauses to take a deep breath, his voice shaky and more high-pitched than usual. “I just want to know why so that I can fix it. And I’m _not_ crying, I’m just _mad_.” 

He’s definitely crying at least a little bit, sniffling and avoiding looking at Jack. Jack feels like the worst scum on the planet. He can’t believe he made one of the kids he’s responsible for _cry_. “I don’t hate you,” he says. He can’t imagine ever hating one of his team; it hurts to even think about. “I just think you’re good, and you can be even better.”

Chicken looks up. “You—what?” 

“I give you pointers because I want to push you to do your best,” Jack says. 

“You mean you yell at me,” Chicken corrects. He’s starting to smile a little now, though. “You yell at me because you like me?” 

“Because you’re good at hockey,” Jack confirms.

“Because you _like_ me,” Chicken says, full-on grinning now. Before Jack can react, Chicken is clinging to Jack’s waist with all the force his scrawny preteen body can muster. Jack stands stock still for a moment, taken off guard, then tentatively hugs Chicken back. 

“I’m sorry that I upset you,” Jack says awkwardly. 

“It’s okay,” Chicken says, his voice muffled by Jack’s chest. He lets go and steps back, wiping the last of his tears out of his eyes. “You really think I’m good?” 

Jack cracks a smile and nods. “Yeah, bud, I really do.” 

“Cool,” Chicken says. “Okay, uh, my dad is probably waiting, so…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack says, waving him off. “Go on, get out of here.” 

“Bye, Coach Z,” Chicken says. He holds out his fist as he passes by, and Jack bumps it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Kent Parson**  
Happy fake thanksgiving, zimms  
11:22 AM | 10-12-09 

— 

Thanksgiving has, for as long as Jack can remember, involved dinner at his house with his extended family. Since it usually coincides with fall break from school, his mother’s side of the family flies in from America—Pittsburgh for his grandparents and his uncle’s family, New York for his aunt’s family—and stays at their house for the long weekend. His dad’s mother and sister both live in Montréal, so they come over for dinner on Monday. 

With five children and seven adults including Jack, the house is loud before it’s even noon. Jack manages to avoid all the catching up that’s going on in the living room by hiding in the kitchen with his mother—even when there’s nothing to be done, Jack makes the excuse that he’s watching the turkey. It’s the first time he’s seen his entire family since before rehab, though he’s spoken to all of them on the phone, and he really doesn’t want to deal with them trying to figure out how to deal with him. Alicia gives him a knowing look, but she doesn’t kick him out. 

Unfortunately, this means that when the food is done and they all sit down for dinner, adults at one table and kids at another, all the attention is focused on Jack. He has some very deep regrets. 

“The food is very good, Alicia,” Jack’s grandmother Hélène says. “As always.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Uncle Scott says, shovelling a truly obscene amount of mashed potatoes in his mouth like he does every year without fail. Beside him, his wife Hailey rolls her eyes fondly. 

Alicia smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “Although I think Jack should get a lot of the credit this year.” 

There’s an audible silence as everyone looks at Jack. “Well, I should hope so,” Grandma Barb says, deliberately cheerful, “what with how much time he spent in the kitchen.” They all laugh as if they know they’re supposed to, and Jack manages a tentative smile. 

“Mom did most of it,” Jack says when everyone continues to look at him. 

“You should be proud of your accomplishments!” Aunt Rose says, voice too earnest to be just talking about cooking. Jack can feel himself turning red. He wishes she would stop; he’s pretty sure everyone knows all he did was chop things and hide. 

Somehow Daisy quietly saying, “Stop it, you’re embarrassing him,” while putting a hand on her wife’s arm and glancing carefully at Jack doesn’t exactly make him feel any better. 

“Oh, he’s fine,” Rose says, overcompensating in the face of the awkwardness. She reaches for her wine glass and takes a sip. Everyone is noticeably _not_ looking at Jack anymore.

“I don’t see why I don’t get a compliment for the truly masterful turkey carving I did,” Bob says with a laugh, clearly trying to distract them.

“Because nobody cares that you successfully wielded a knife, Bobby, honestly,” Aunt Meredith says, all business. Bob rolls his eyes. Hailey nearly chokes on her vegetables she laughs so abruptly, and Scott absentmindedly pats her on the back. 

“So, Jack,” he says, “what have you been up to since you, uh—” Scott cuts himself off at a glare from Hailey. He clears his throat and looks down at his plate. 

“He means to ask what you’ve been doing this fall?” Hailey says, voice soft and cautious like she’s talking to a wild animal. Jack wishes he were anywhere else.

“Um,” he says, “I assistant coach a Pee-Wee team.” 

“What does that entail?” Grandpa Jack asks. 

Jack shrugs. “Uh—”

“Paperwork,” Alicia says, a laugh in her voice. 

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. “That and skating with the kids, running practice and stuff.” 

“Sounds cool!” Daisy says, smiling encouragingly.

“Is it fun?” Scott asks.

Jack nods. 

“Do you think you want to be head coach someday?” Grandma Hélène asks.

“A coach?” Meredith asks, eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t you still want to play in the NHL, Jack?” 

Jack abruptly loses his appetite. He puts his fork down next to his plate. Everyone is looking at him warily, like they know an unspoken line has been crossed and are waiting for Jack to lose it, but they all clearly want to hear the answer. “I, uh,” he starts, but his throat closes up and he can’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t know what to say, anyway. Of course he fucking wants it. It doesn’t mean he can ever have it. 

“Oh, leave off him,” Scott says after the silence stretches on. “He’s eighteen. Did you know what you wanted to do when you were that age? At least he’s having fun.” 

Rose nods quickly. “I sure didn’t have anything figured out at eighteen.” 

“Jack’s always been so prepared, though,” Meredith says. “He always had a plan. I remember—”

“Sometimes plans don’t work out,” Grandma Hélène interrupts, her voice sharp. 

Jack pushes his chair back from the table and gets up, unable to stand sitting there anymore. He gets two steps away before he turns around and picks up his plate. “I’m just gonna…” he mutters, refusing to look up and see everyone’s expression as they stare at him. He takes his chair and drags it away with him as well. 

The kids are all sitting at a folding table set up in the space between the dining room and the kitchen. Jack puts his chair in the empty space next to Bo, the youngest at about five years old, and sits down. He looks up at Jack and smiles, then goes back to eating his peas one at a time with his hands. On Bo’s other side, his sister Hannah is arguing with Zoe and Arthur about the New Jersey Devils’ chances of winning the Cup this season. Zoe and Arthur, being Scott’s kids and from Pittsburgh, are die-hard Penguins fans. From what Jack can tell, Zoe is making a reasonable argument for them over the Devils with all her sixteen-year-old wisdom, while Arthur just keeps saying, “Crosby!” Both Zoe and Hannah appear to be ignoring him entirely. None of them acknowledge Jack sitting down at all. 

Sitting directly across from jack is Maggie. She’s the middle child between Zoe and Arthur, and Jack has no doubt that she has to listen to a lot of hockey talk at home whether or not she likes it—and, if the sighing and rolling her eyes is any indication, she doesn’t. 

“Hi,” she says to Jack. “What are you doing?”

“Sitting here,” Jack says. 

“Okay…” Maggie says. “You don’t have any cutlery.” 

Jack looks down at his plate, then back at Maggie. She’s right, he didn’t bring his cutlery with him, and he is definitely not going back for it. He’d really only taken the plate to make running away less weird, which probably didn’t even work. “Um, nope.” 

“Do you want some?”

“Not really,” Jack says.

“Are you sure? Because you can, like, have my spoon if you want?” Maggie offers. 

“No, I don’t need your spoon,” Jack says. He kind of wants to laugh at how skeptical of him Maggie looks, but he suppresses it. “I’m not really hungry.” 

“Okay,” Maggie says, shrugging. She goes back to eating her turkey, and Jack tries to think of something to talk to her about. She’s the same age as half his team, but he doesn’t even know what they like outside of hockey. Video games? School? 

He finally gives up and asks, “What kind of stuff do you like?” 

Maggie stares at him. “Um… why?”

Jack shrugs. “You don’t like hockey.” 

“Oh,” Maggie says, shooting a disparaging look over at her siblings and cousin, who are still talking about hockey. “Yeah, no. I like books.”

“What kind of books?” 

“Any? Um, I like if they have magic in them,” she says. 

Jack nods. “I don’t read much, but I used to like, um, this book about a dragon rider?” 

Maggie’s eyes light up. “Yeah! It has a blue cover? They fly around the world?”

“Yeah, that one,” Jack says. 

“It’s awesome,” Maggie breathes, and then all Jack has to do is nod and offer an opinion every so often while she talks about what she liked about that book and how it was similar to other books she’s read. Eventually the other kids join in on the conversation—Zoe isn’t much for reading, but Hannah and Arthur have preferences (realism and fantasy, respectively), while Bo informs them all that he doesn’t know how to read. 

Jack is refereeing an argument between Hannah and Bo about whether Bo being able to read his own name counts when Meredith walks by to get to the kitchen, a stack of dirty dishes in her hands. The adults all start wandering over after that. Daisy effectively ends the argument by checking to see how much Hannah and Bo ate and bargaining with Hannah about eating her turkey if she wants dessert. Hannah is staunchly refusing to on the grounds that it’s covered in cranberry sauce, and Jack is glad he’s not the one that has to compete with her stubborn expression.

Maggie hands her empty plate to Scott when he asks if she’s done without even looking at him. “I can make you a list of books to read if you want,” she tells Jack. 

“Sure,” Jack says. “That’d be cool. Make sure you put that one you said had an ancient civilization in it on there.”

“Duh,” Maggie says, rolling her eyes and grinning. Jack smiles back just as Meredith is walking past into the dining room, and she pauses beside the table, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack looks up at Meredith warily. “You know, Jack,” she says, “you could work with kids. You certainly seem to be good at it.” 

Jack nods, recognizing the gesture for the quasi-apology it’s meant as. “Thanks,” he says. “Maybe I will.” Whether or not that’s something he’d really want to do isn’t the point. He knows she's just trying to reach out to him, and it's not fair to punish her for that, even if she goes about it the wrong way.

—

Because of Thanksgiving Monday, Jack’s usual therapy session is on Tuesday instead. The timing is ideal, because Jack has enough time to obsessively think about the minor Thanksgiving fiasco and have feelings about it, but not enough time to file those feelings away. It means that when Julie asks how his Thanksgiving went, Jack has something to say rather than just shrugging. 

“It was okay,” he says. “Or, well, no, actually, it was pretty terrible. I spent most of it hiding from my family in the kitchen, and then at dinner they started asking me what I’m doing with my life. I told them about the team, and they seemed like they supported that, but my aunt asked if I still wanted to make it to the NHL and it turned into a whole conversation about plans not going right? So I, uh, moved and sat at the kids’ table.”

He knows Julie is just going to ask him how he feels about it, so he continues on without waiting for it. “It’s frustrating, you know? I’ve been trying really hard to avoid pressure like that, and it makes me feel like… like all that isn’t even working because it feels the same as soon as I’m reminded. I know they’re all just trying to be nice and interested in my life, and my aunt kind of apologized, but…” He pauses, struggling for the words. “I wish they would think about what they were saying, I guess.”

“I think that’s reasonable,” Julie says. “You’re right that they seem to be trying, though. I think that’s something to be thankful for.” 

“Yeah, I just… hate being reminded,” Jack says. 

Julie nods. “Let’s talk about more things you’re thankful for.”

“Oh,” Jack says, taken aback. He was expecting to talk more about his family. “Okay, well… my parents? I’m glad they’re supportive. Hearing the kinds of things they could be saying every day made that even nicer.” 

“That’s good,” Julie says. “What else?” 

“My job,” Jack says.

“What about it?” Julie asks. 

Jack shrugs. “The kids, mostly. They don’t expect me to be anything but there for them, and I can do that.” 

“They trust you,” Julie supplies.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “It’s nice to have something I haven’t failed at.” _Yet_ , he adds silently. He doesn’t quite trust himself. 

Julie looks disapproving. “You know your overdose doesn’t make you a failure,” she reminds him. “You weren’t a failure before it, and you aren’t one now.” 

Jack stares at the seascape on the wall and doesn’t say anything. Julie inevitably tells him something similar every week, and he refuses to acknowledge it every time.

“Okay,” Julie says after waiting the requisite amount of time. “Another thing you’re thankful for?” 

Jack frowns. There isn’t really much in his life other than his parents and his Pee-Wee team. Julie has him thinking about his overdose now, though, and he’s hit with the sudden realization that if he’d succeeded in never waking up the way he’d wanted to, his parents would have been devastated and he never would have met any of the kids. It’s a sobering thought. “I’m thankful to be alive,” Jack says. 

Julie smiles at him. “I’m glad to hear it,” she says. 

Jack expects her to say something more to move along the conversation, but she doesn’t. He shifts uncomfortably when the silence stretches on. “Not that I’m doing much,” he says with a brief laugh. 

“No?” Julie says. “What would you like to be doing? You’ve said you’re not sure if you’re cut out for the NHL—what do you want to do instead?” 

Jack is blindsided by the question. He’d braced himself for a conversation like that after he recounted Thanksgiving, but not after Julie had changed the subject. He should have known better—Julie never pulls any punches, only lies in wait to make them hurt more. 

Regardless, he doesn’t have an answer, and he doesn’t want to think about it. “I think we’re out of time,” Jack says, looking at the clock. It’s fifteen minutes before his session is scheduled to end. 

Julie glances at her watch and is clearly about to protest, but Jack stands before she can do so. “See you next week,” he adds before hightailing it out of her office. He’s probably going to pay for that next week, but at least for now he doesn’t have to consider his career options. 

—

Their first game in November is against the Seigneurs. They’re tied 1-1 in the third period when Garden hits a nick in the ice and loses an edge. He wrenches his leg as he goes down in a way that looks painful, and he doesn’t get back up for a few long, heart-stopping moments. Jack hears Garden’s mother gasp in the stands and predicts that she’ll be trying to shove her way onto the bench in no time flat—she’s that kind of overbearing. Cyrille, anticipating the same thing, is already heading to the hallway to intercept her.

Gameplay stops, and Roddy and a referee help Garden off the ice while the rest of the line follows them at a distance, looking worried. Jack gives him a nod; he’s red-faced and grimacing, but he looks like he’ll be all right. 

“I’m fine!” Garden says a second later. “Really, I—” 

“Maybe so, buddy, but you’re not getting back on that ice until the doctor says,” the referee says grimly.

Garden looks at Jack like maybe he’ll rescue him, but Jack just shakes his head and watches them go.

“Okay,” Coach Leclair says loudly to get everyone’s attention, “game’s not over yet. Bergeron, you’re in for Desjardins. Zimmermann, man the bench while I go check on Max.” He heads out after Garden and the ref.

Bergey looks up in surprise. “Me?” he asks, voice high-pitched and confused. “Did he say me?”

“Yes,” Jack confirms. 

“Um…” Bergey says. He stands, and then immediately sits back down. “I think—”

Jack can see his hands shaking. He doesn’t blame him one bit; they make sure that everyone on the team gets nearly equal ice time in the interest of player development, but Bergey is one of their floaters. He doesn’t have a set position he plays, and they generally put him on during low pressure moments. The end of the third when they’re tied is not one of those times, but Jack can see why Coach Leclair did it. They don’t want to tire any of their other left wingers out; especially not when they have another game tomorrow. 

Just because Jack knows _why_ Bergey is freaking out doesn’t mean he knows how to fix it and get Bergey back on the ice so the game can continue. He has no idea what to say, but there isn’t any time to waste.

“Hey,” Jack says, kneeling down to bring himself to Bergey’s eye level. Bergey looks at him with wide eyes, and Jack goes straight for the platitude. “I know how scary it seems to get out there on the ice, but it’s nothing you can’t do.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Bergey protests. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears now. 

Jack shakes his head, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady so that Bergey can’t see that he’s about to panic as well. “It’s not,” he says firmly. “I get scared all the time. I start shaking just like you are. But if you just keep breathing and skating, then you can do anything.”

Bergey looks skeptical. “I’m not that good,” he says, sniffling. 

“You’re a lot better than having a missing left wing,” Jack says. “And I think you’re underestimating yourself.” The other referee skates over to see what the hold-up is. Jack holds up a finger to indicate they need a minute. “Do you think you can do it?” 

Bergey hesitates, then asks all in a rush, “How scared were you before you scored that game winner in the Memorial Cup final?” 

Jack blinks in surprise. That game feels like a lifetime ago, but even so, Jack can remember how he’d been practically vibrating with adrenaline on the bench. He can remember being in the back corner of the dressing room during the second intermission with Kent clutching Jack’s forearms and Jack holding on to him just as hard. Kent was telling Jack to get it together, and Jack kept nodding even though all he wanted to do was scream.

“Terrified,” he says honestly. 

Bergey nods, and it must have been the answer he was looking for, because he’s out on the ice a few seconds later. Jack takes a deep breath and straightens up, taking Coach Leclair’s usual spot to watch the game. 

In a trick of fate that seems sent from the hockey gods themselves, Bergey scores the game winning goal. It’s not anything beautiful, more like Jonesy barreling through the opposition with a thread of hope and a prayer and then fumbling the puck at the last second. That prompts a scuffle in front of the net that Jack can barely see, and then Bergey manages to somehow get the puck past the goal line. It’s luck, but it’s a goal, and Bergey’s wide grin is priceless. 

There are still three minutes left to play, and when Bergey sits back down on the bench between shifts, he turns around and smiles again, this time at Jack. “Did you see, Coach Z?” 

“I saw,” Jack says. “I told you you could do it.” 

Bergey holds out his hand for a fist bump, and Jack gives him one. “Thanks,” Bergey says.

“Not a problem,” Jack tells him. 

—

Garden’s injury turns out to be a sprained knee—it’ll be a few weeks before he can play, and he has to be careful, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Conveniently, the Conquérants have a bit of a break in their schedule anyway, so Garden won’t miss too many games.

The break also means that the next Friday’s practice is a bit more loose than usual. They do all the regular warmups and drills, but somewhere along the line—Jack thinks Coach Leclair had declared breaktime, but after that he has no idea how this happened—it devolved into stick jousting. 

Jonesy has his stick held in one hand, the other wrapped in the back of Grenzy’s jersey, and he’s yelling for Grenzy to skate harder. Directly opposite them, a loudly swearing Monty is being towed along, stick waving in the air, by Rebel. It looks like an imminent disaster, and Jack is about to yell at them to cut it out when Cyrille beats him to it. 

Barely a minute later, Cyrille has them skating suicides. She’s laughing at them, though, so Jack is pretty sure she’ll let them off after a set or two. 

Tiger, sitting on the bench next to Jack, makes a frustrated noise. He’s got his helmet and gloves off, and he’s staring intently down at a binder in his lap, a pencil clutched in one hand. 

“What’s up?” Jack asks. 

“Homework,” Tiger says. 

Jack nods. That much he could see; it’s not that uncommon for Tiger to spend breaks working on his schoolwork. Normally he does it in the dressing room and hardly ever on a Friday, though. “No free time this weekend?” he asks.

Tiger sighs loudly. “We got _so_ much homework,” he complains. “And I have a family thing I’m supposed to go to, so that’s not going to help, and I don’t get this assignment anyway, so I don’t know why I’m even trying.” 

It’s maybe the most Jack’s ever heard Tiger say all in a row. “What’s the assignment?” he asks. 

“Oh,” Tiger says, sounding surprised that Jack would ask. “This is my current events booklet,” he says, gesturing to his binder. “But the real problem is this project I have to do for social studies. I’m supposed to research the differences in Québec society and Canadian society in the prairies around 1900.”

“What don’t you get about it?” Jack asks.

Tiger sighs. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to find anything for it. We’re not allowed to use more than one website, so…”

Jack nods understandingly. “Are you allowed to use your textbook?” 

“She said if we had to,” Tiger says, wrinkling his nose. 

Jack makes a noise of acknowledgement. Out on the ice, Cyrille tells the boys they can stop skating suicides. “1900, did you say?” Jack asks Tiger.

“Yeah,” Tiger confirms. 

“I think I have a book that might help,” Jack says. “And you should really just go to the library and ask a librarian.”

“You have a book?” Tiger asks. “Like, you own a history book?” 

Jack shrugs. “Yes? I own a lot of history books. I like it.” 

“Wow,” Tiger says. “I hate it. I mean—uh. I would love to borrow that, if I could?”

Jack laughs. “Yeah, for sure you can borrow it. I’ll bring it for you tomorrow.” 

Tiger beams at him. “Thanks, Coach Z.” 

—

The Conquérants have a holiday party in December every year, which means that Jack started helping to plan it in late October so that it could be announced in the monthly newsletter. By mid-November, he’s handing out reminder notes and sign-up sheets for bringing food. 

“Make sure you give these to your parents, and tell them you have to return them by the date at the top if they want to bring food,” Jack says as he hands one to Gaudy. Gaudy shoves it in his bag without looking, and so does Monty, but Grenzy leans back against the wall and starts reading it. 

“We’re having food at the party?” he asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Cyrille says from the other side of the dressing room. “It’s over the supper hour.” 

Grenzy nods and carefully folds the letter. JT looks at his own copy with interest when Jack hands it to him. “Are you gonna bring something, Coach Z?” he asks. 

Jack pauses. “I wasn’t planning on it unless we need something in particular,” he says.

“We should have cookies!” Mountie says. 

“This doesn’t suggest _any_ sweet things,” Grenzy says, waving the paper.

“Let me see,” Mountie demands, tugging a copy out of Jack’s hands. “Ew, casserole.”

“Do you guys think you _deserve_ cookies?” Cyrille says, voice teasing, as she hands Jonesy her last copy.

Jonesy makes a face. “It’s a Christmas party,” he says. “There should be Christmas cookies.” 

“ _Exactly_ ,” Mountie says emphatically, pointing at Jonesy. Jonesy grins and points back. 

“It’s a holiday party,” Jack corrects, and then adds teasingly, “And that doesn’t answer the question.” Mountie rolls his eyes at him, and Jack stifles a laugh. 

“Hey!” JT says. “What if we make you a deal?” 

Cyrille raises a skeptical eyebrow and exchanges a look with Jack. “What kind of deal?” she asks. 

“Um…” JT says, clearly stalling for time. He looks around in earnest, but nobody jumps in to help him. “Oh, I know! If we win, like, more than half the games before the party, you and Coach Z will make us cookies.” 

“I don’t know if you really want me to bake,” Jack deadpans. 

“Yeah, we do!” Mountie says. A bunch of the boys nod in agreement. Jack shoots Cyrille a look of desperation, but she just shakes her head at him. 

“I think it sounds like a fair deal,” she says. “Coach Z?”

Jack sighs. He can’t say no now, not with all the boys looking at him so hopefully, and besides, it won’t be that bad if he has to try to bake. Cyrille probably knows how, she’s that kind of competent. “Sounds good to me,” he says. 

JT grins and holds out a hand. Jack shakes on it, and then Cyrille does. “You have to shake hands with Bear and Lion, too,” JT informs them. “Because we’re the representatives.” 

“Oh, of course,” Cyrille says, turning to Lion. “Naturally.” Lion grins and shakes her hand. 

“Obviously,” Jack agrees, crossing the room to shake hands with Bear.

“They better be good cookies,” Bear tells him solemnly, his grip on Jack’s hand strong. 

“You haven’t earned them yet,” Jack says.

“Yet,” Bear repeats. Jack figures he has a good point. 

—

For as long as Jack can remember, he and his parents have spent Christmas at his grandparents’ house in Pittsburgh and New Year’s back in Montréal with his grandmother and aunt. It’s always a huge production, much more so than Thanksgiving. When he mentions the Conquérants’ holiday party to Julie and she brings that around to what his family is planning to do, he’s not all that surprised to realize that he’s not at all looking forward to it. 

“It’s just… stressful,” he says. 

“Holidays often are,” Julie agrees. “What do you think would help reduce the stress of it?” 

Jack shrugs. He can’t think of anything that isn’t locking himself in his room and refusing to come out, and he’s pretty sure that’s not an option Julie would approve of. 

Julie is waiting patiently, though, so Jack says, “If there were less people?” He immediately feels guilty; he likes his extended family for the most part, it’s just that they’re a lot all at once. 

“Understandable,” Julie says. “Any other ideas?”

Jack shrugs and shakes his head.

Julie switches which leg she has crossed over the other and looks at Jack thoughtfully. “What would your ideal Christmas be like?” 

“At home,” Jack says. He hesitates, then adds, “Just my parents and me, I guess. Really just the basics, nothing made into a big deal.” 

“You could do that,” Julie points out. “At the very least you could tell your parents that’s what you’d like to do.” 

Jack balks. “I don’t think so,” he says quickly. He’s not about to suggest they do things differently after so many years of the same. He’s already forced them to make enough adjustments for him. 

“Why not?” Julie asks. 

“It’s a tradition,” Jack says. “They won’t want to skip seeing the entire family.” 

“I don’t think you know what they want until you ask,” Julie says. She’s making a lot of sense, as she often does, and Jack shrugs instead of trying to protest. Julie, recognizing that for the brush off it is, adds, “I think that will be your homework. You don’t have to push for it or anything, but you really should let them know how you feel.”

Jack makes an annoyed face, but he nods. He knows he got into this mess by not sharing his feelings, and he’s doing his best not to end up there again. It’s easier with instructions.

Just because he knows what he wants to say doesn’t make it any simpler to get the words out when he actually wants to, though. He wants to bring it up right after therapy in order to get it over with, but both his parents are out and don’t get back before he has to leave for practice. When he returns, though, they’re both in the kitchen making dinner. Jack hovers awkwardly in the doorway, then sternly tells himself to get over it.

“Hey,” he says. 

Alicia turns around from where she’s stirring a pot to wave hello, and Bob looks up from the lettuce he’s cutting up. “Hey, Jack!” he says. “How was work?” 

Jack shrugs. “Good. The boys had a solid practice, and I got a start on writing up the next newsletter.”

“That’s great. I’m glad you’re keeping busy,” Bob says, scraping the lettuce off his cutting board and into a bowl.

“Yep,” Jack agrees. 

There’s an awkward lull in which Jack tries to figure out how to smoothly bring up his holiday woes, but just as he’s piecing together something leading from the newsletter, Alicia says, “Make yourself useful, the table needs setting,” and Jack goes off to do that instead. 

When he’s done, Bob is just finishing up grating cheese on top of the salad, and Alicia is peering into the pot she’s been attending. “This isn’t _quite_ done,” she says. “Should only be another minute, though.”

“No rush,” Bob says cheerfully, and Jack nods his agreement. He tries again to think of a way to bring the conversation to where he wants it; theoretically he has all of dinner to do so, but he just wants it over with. 

“So, like,” he starts, and then he stops, caught out by both of them looking at him. “Uh.”

“Like?” Bob asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Christmas?” Jack tries. “What are we doing for Christmas?”

“Visiting Grandpa and Grandma like always, I would assume,” Alicia says. “Right, Bob?”

Bob nods. “Hadn’t thought about it much. Why do you ask?” 

Jack clears his throat. “I, um. It’s just that… it’s stressful with all the people, and I thought maybe… it would be nice if it was just us?” He exhales. There, he said it. That’s as far as he has to go.

Alicia is nodding. “That’s not a half-bad idea,” she says, and wait—what? 

“We’ve never really had a proper family vacation just us three, have we?” Bob asks. “We could go somewhere nice for the holidays, really have a good getaway.”

“Oh!” Alicia says, brightening. “Somewhere warm, I’m already tired of winter.”

Jack stares. This… is not the reaction he had been expecting. He’s not even entirely sure he wants to go ‘somewhere warm’ any more than he wants to go to Pittsburgh. At least Pittsburgh is familiar. 

“Are we sure we don’t mind missing the rest of the family?” Bob asks. 

Alicia shrugs. “I think they would understand,” she says. “Don’t you?”

“Sure, sure,” Bob agrees. “It’s been a hell of a year.” 

Jack cringes. “We don’t have to do anything different,” he says. “I don’t want—” He cuts himself off, unsure where he wanted to take that sentence. 

“Nonsense. It’s not just about you,” Bob teases. “Your mother and I want a vacation.”

“It’s not a problem to have it just us, honey,” Alicia says gently. “I think it sounds nice, really.”

Jack can’t argue with either of those points, so he nods. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, sounds good.”

—

The Conquérants get the news that they’re accepted to the 2010 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament in the middle of a series of wins. The boys try to convince Jack and Cyrille that it means they should automatically get the cookies, but neither of them budge. Jack finds himself repeating, “A deal is a deal,” more times than he would have thought possible. Preteen boys are utterly relentless. 

After all that good news, the team losing a game hits the kids hard. The locker room after the game is dead quiet, and Jack wants to kick something in frustration. They’d been so close, coming from behind to tie the game at the end of the second, and Rebel had practically stood on his head for the twenty minutes after that, but Arsenal had enough shots on goal that one eventually slipped in.

It’s awful and annoying, and Jack completely understands why everyone is upset, but also—they did their best, and they deserve to know it. Jack has spent too much time in his life obsessing over every little thing he did wrong and not enough time thinking about what he did right—he still struggles with that, and if he’s learned anything from Julie, it’s that worrying too much about wins and losses is a great way to start down that road. He’s not going to let that happen to his team if he can help it. 

“Listen up,” he says to them all. He waits until he’s sure everyone is paying attention to continue. “That out there? Was some _great_ hockey, okay? You killed it, but sometimes you play your best and the other team still gets the win. That’s hockey.”

He pauses. Bear is nodding along grimly, eyes focused on Jack, and so are a few others—but overall, they still look fairly upset. “You have absolutely nothing to be disappointed about. All you can control is how well you play, and you did a great job of that,” Jack adds firmly. “And hey—how about that performance from Rebel, eh?”

The entire team cheers at that, the boys closest to Rebel slugging him in the shoulder appreciatively. Rebel, who’s been sitting slumped down and looking frustrated, perks up slightly and tries to hide his pleased grin in the neck of his jersey. “We still lost,” he points out, voice muffled.

Jack shakes his head. “I think Rebel needs some more convincing, guys,” he says. “What can we do to fix that?” 

“Group hug!” JT suggests loudly, already launching himself across the room and smothering a laughing Rebel. Everyone follows JT’s lead until they’re all a giant pile of boys hugging and giggling. Jack watches them, smiling to himself. That’s more like it. 

—

Despite the loss, the Conquérants easily fulfill their end of the deal with Jack and Cyrille, cementing the fact that they’ve won over half their games right at the tail end of November. They’re smug about it in the locker room afterward, and Jack can’t really fault them for that.

“So this cookie thing,” Cyrille says as they’re heading out after the game. “Sometime this week? When are you free?” 

“Not Monday,” Jack says. “Any other day is fine?” 

“I have class all day Tuesday and then one in the morning on Wednesday, but after that? Where are we doing this?” 

Jack shrugs. Anywhere with a kitchen is fine with him. 

Cyrille sighs. “My mother would probably not approve of me trying to bake in her kitchen,” she says as she stops by her car. Jack stops as well. “She’s very protective.” 

“Mine’s not,” Jack says. 

Cyrille raises her eyebrows. “Do you have a nice kitchen?” 

“Um, well,” Jack says, “yes?” Everything in his house fits that description, he thinks, but he can’t just say that. 

“Okay, so give me your address now, before we forget, and I’ll drive over there after class Wednesday,” Cyrille says. “Cool?”

“Cool,” Jack agrees. He digs a pad of sticky notes and a pen out from one of the outer pouches of his hockey bag and scrawls his address on one of the sticky notes. He hands it to her. “Call me if you need directions, I guess?” 

“Will do,” Cyrille agrees, opening her car door. “See you at conditioning on Monday.”

“See you,” Jack echoes. 

Wednesday arrives sooner than Jack anticipated. He spends the entire morning after his workout nervously cleaning random rooms in the house. Alicia comes across him in his dad’s office and shakes her head at him. “You know Cyrille isn’t even going to come in here,” she points out. “The kitchen is on the other side of the house.”

Jack shrugs. Cleaning is making him feel like he’s at least doing something. “She might,” he mutters to the bookshelf he’s dusting.

Alicia sighs. Jack can tell she wants to tell him to calm down but is actively stopping herself. “I’m glad you have a friend,” she says instead. 

That’s almost as bad as telling him to calm down, because now he’s thinking about why his mother would have reason to be especially glad that he has a friend. He wants to say that he’s _had_ friends this whole time, but it would be—well, he hasn’t spoken to anyone he would have called a friend before in months. 

“We work together,” he says instead. “We promised the kids we’d do this.”

Alicia gives him an exasperated look. “She’s your friend,” she says. “What about those times you missed family dinner to go out with her after practice instead?” 

Jack shrugs. Alicia’s not _wrong_ , Jack is fairly sure they’re at least casual friends, but he just doesn’t want to get her hopes up too high in case he fucks this up somehow. So far he and Cyrille have hung out a few times and been able to find things to talk about that aren’t hockey or, failing that, just sit in companionable silence, but Jack doesn’t have the best track record with these things. 

“Okay,” Alicia says. “Why don’t you go check that you have everything you need in the kitchen?” 

Jack rolls his eyes. “We did that twice already,” he points out. 

Alicia holds out a hand. “Give me the Swiffer and go.” 

Jack gives her the Swiffer and goes. He’s not about to mess with his mother when she’s got her stern face on. 

The kitchen still has ingredients for no less than three different kinds of cookies lined up along the counter and on their own shelf in the fridge. Jack hadn’t know what they were going to make, so he’d come up with the three most likely types of Christmas cookies and gotten ingredients for those, plus a random assortment of decorations. He figures if Cyrille has a different idea, she’ll bring the stuff for it and all this can just go in the pantry. 

Everything is still there. There isn’t anything else they need. Jack stands still in the kitchen for an entire ten seconds before he starts nervously wiping down the counters that aren’t covered in stuff. 

He’s still doing it when the doorbell rings. He unceremoniously throws the dishcloth into the sink and runs for the front door. 

He’s too late. When he gets there, his dad has already let Cyrille in and is shaking hands with her, his most charming smile on his face. Jack restrains himself from actually groaning aloud. 

“—so nice to meet you,” Bob is saying. “I’m Bob Zimmermann, feel free to call me Bob.”

Cyrille nods. “I know who you are,” she says, glancing at Jack over Bob’s shoulder. Jack tries to look apologetic and has no idea if he succeeds. 

Bob laughs. “Never too sure,” he says. “Make yourself right at home, we’re glad to have you here.”

“I don’t know about right at home,” Cyrille says. “I’m more likely to get lost. I thought I had the wrong place for a second before I remembered just whose house I was going to.” 

She laughs at her own joke, and so does Bob. “Do you want a tour?” Bob asks eagerly. “I’m sure Jack and I—”

“We have cookies to make,” Jack interrupts. “The house is too big to tour, right? Time is of the essence, and you only need a kitchen to bake.” 

“Very true,” Cyrille agrees. “It’s nice to meet you, Bob. I think Jack’s got me from here.”

“Of course,” Bob says. “I’ll just stay out of you kids’ hair. Holler if you need anything.”

“Sure, Dad, thanks,” Jack says. He and Cyrille both watch as Bob retreats down the hallway. “You can put your stuff in this closet,” Jack tells Cyrille, opening its door. 

Cyrille nods and starts taking off her winter jacket. “Your dad is nice,” she says. 

Jack shrugs. “Yeah,” he agrees. He waits while Cyrille takes off her boots and shoves the rest of her winter accessories into them before leading her to the kitchen. “So, um.”

“This is a lot of stuff,” Cyrille says, surveying the countertop full of ingredients. “How many cookies are we making again?” 

“Uh,” Jack says. “I didn’t know what kind? …I also don’t know how many.” 

Cyrille laughs at him, but she bumps her shoulder into his at the same time. “Okay, what are the options?” 

Jack shows her the three recipes he’d found, and Cyrille picks the sugar cookies on the grounds that they seems the easiest and they can have more fun decorating them. “Since you bought like five tubs of icing, what even,” she adds, teasing. 

“They’re different colours,” Jack protests. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Cyrille says, waving a hand dismissively. “What temperature do we need to preheat the oven to? How does your oven even work?” 

They manage to figure out how the oven works and get the cookie batter made without too much trouble, and then Jack neglects to grease the cookie sheet and Cyrille puts them in for the max amount of time listed in the recipe, so the first batch comes out slightly burnt and stuck to the pan. Jack stares at them in horror for a minute, then looks at Cyrille, then back at the cookies. Cyrille bursts out laughing.

“They’re just cookies, Jack, we can make more!” she says. “So we suck a little, whatever. We can use these to practice decorating on.”

Jack grimaces. “If we ever pry them off this cookie sheet, you mean.” 

Cyrille laughs anew at that, and Jack can’t help but join in. Her laugh is infectious, and she’s right that it’s not a big deal, even if it feels like it.

The next batch is better, not that that’s saying much, and the next two after that are almost perfect. Cyrille makes it very clear that Jack is smiling at the nicely browned bottoms of the cookies too much by rolling her eyes and chirping him. “You don’t need to make love to the cookies,” she tells him as she puts the last batch in the oven. “They don’t love you back, Zimmermann.” 

“You only say that because _you’re_ the one who burned the first batch,” Jack shoots back.

Cyrille mock gasps and presses start on the oven timer. “How dare you. Who was it that didn’t spray the pan?” She puts her hands on her hips. “Tell me, did anyone ever teach you how to read?” 

“Did anyone ever teach you how to tell time?” 

“Have you got a crowbar around here? Because…” Cyrille says, prodding at the last few cookies they haven’t scraped off the pan yet. 

“Oh my God,” Jack mutters. 

“What’s this about a crowbar?” Alicia asks from the doorway. 

Jack whirls around. “Mom! We just—”

“Jack here burned some cookies,” Cyrille says. “He’s denying it, but I blame him entirely. I’m Cyrille, by the way.” She crosses to the other side of the kitchen, hand outstretched, and Alicia shakes her hand.

“We’ve heard so much about you!” she enthuses. “I’m Alicia.”

“It’s nice to meet you. And they were good things you heard, I hope?” Cyrille says, looking over at Jack. 

“Awful things,” Jack says. 

Alicia laughs. “No, he likes you a lot,” she says. “Don’t let him convince you otherwise.” 

“Nah, I won’t,” Cyrille says. “I think I’ve got him figured out.” 

“Hey,” Jack says, but it’s only a token protest. She’s probably right. 

“Okay,” Alicia says, “I’ll let you get back to it. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right in here, but you seem to have it in hand.” 

“Yes, thank you,” Cyrille says. “You sure you don’t want to stay and help decorate?” 

Alicia shakes her head. “I’ve never been much for that stuff,” she says. “You have fun.” 

Cyrille turns to Jack when Alicia is gone and raises an eyebrow. “I’m worried about these cookies if you’re anything like your mom, then,” she says. “First can’t spray a pan, next can’t put frosting on to save his life…”

“Don’t be rude,” Jack says.

“I’m not hearing a no,” Cyrille says, but she does stop and sit down at the one of the stools by the island, dragging a cooling rack of cookies over to herself. She pokes them and shrugs. “These are probably cool enough.” 

Jack brings the decorations over from where they’d shoved them to the side and puts them in the middle of the island before sitting down as well. “How are we decorating them?” 

“Well, we don’t want to do just red and green since not everyone celebrates Christmas, so… Conquérants colours?” Cyrille suggests, picking up a yellow icing tube. 

“We can do ones with their jersey numbers?” Jack asks. 

Cyrille nods. “That and then a bunch of generic ones. Can you draw a sword?” 

“Uh,” Jack says, “I guess we’re about to find out.” 

It turns out that neither of them are particularly good at making swords with icing, but the cookies with the numbers look good, and the swords aren’t _awful_. The kids are twelve, it’s not like they’re going to care that the sword made out of sugar is slightly crooked. 

By the time they’re done, there’s icing everywhere and Jack’s head hurts from squinting at tiny cookie surfaces. There’s blue frosting in Cyrille’s bangs, and Jack gestures awkwardly at her. “You’ve got, uh—” Cyrille makes to wipe at her face, and Jack shakes his head. “In your hair,” he clarifies.

“Gross,” Cyrille says, wiping it off and then looking at her hand in distaste. Jack offers her a dish towel, and she gives him a doubtful look. “I don’t want to upset your mom by ruining a good towel.”

“It’s fine,” Jack says, “this isn’t one of the fancy ones.”

Cyrille still looks dubious, but she takes the dish towel and wipes her hands anyway. She leans back and looks at the array of cookies. “These are pretty good, don’t you think?” 

Jack nods. “They’re cute.”

“We should eat one each before we box them up,” Cyrille declares. “Here, I’ll pick one for you and you pick one for me.” 

She takes a moment to decide on giving Jack one of the early ones that has too much frosting and a too fat sword on it. She hops off her stool to put the gum she’s been chewing in the garbage, and Jack carefully selects his most crooked sword and pushes it over to her spot at the table. 

“Nice,” Cyrille says when she sees. She picks it up and takes a bite. “ _Nice_ ,” she repeats through a mouthful of cookie. 

Jack tentatively tries his own. It’s pretty good; it’s not like he thought they fucked up sugar cookies, but it’s nice to know for sure. “Well done, team,” he says when he’s finished eating.

Cyrille grins and holds up a hand. Jack high fives her. 

“I guess we have to clean up this mess, though,” Cyrille says, looking around the kitchen.

Jack looks at the various dirty measuring utensils and bowls strewn across the countertops along with a fine layer of flour and cringes. “Yeah,” he says, “we should probably do that.” 

“The party never stops,” Cyrille says. 

—

The holiday party is at the same rink they usually use for full-ice practices. They co-opt the entire concession area for all the food the parents brought, and anyone invited is allowed on the ice for free skate. There are tiny snowflake decorations draped across a few places, but nothing too big—something Cyrille vows to change next year, provided they have more time. Jack is privately of the opinion that there’s no way they’re going to have more time next year. 

The kids love it, though. It doesn’t take much more than food and getting to fool around on the ice to make them happy. 

They wait to get the cookies out until everyone has arrived and they’ve gathered everyone back in from skating, even though JT refuses to leave Jack’s side until he does.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Lion says loudly when Jack opens the container and presents the cookies rather self-consciously. 

“They have our numbers!” Mountie says excitedly, and then Jack has to put the container down so they can all descend upon it, jostling each other, until JT and Bear, at Cyrille’s request, take charge of handing out the numbered cookies to their correct recipient. 

“Good job you two did with those,” Coach Leclair says. 

“You should have one,” Cyrille says. “They’re not half bad, even if—”

“Don’t say it,” Jack warns her. “They really are good, though, Coach.” 

Coach Leclair laughs. “I don’t doubt it,” he says. “I’ll grab a small one if there are any left after the kids are done with ‘em.” 

“Might want to get in there quick,” Cyrille says. “I’m not holding out hope.” 

A few of the parents are already telling their kids to back away from the cookies and come get some of the actual dinner food. There’s a lot of eye rolling and dramatic sighs involved, but for the most part the kids do listen. 

Jack is snapping the lid back on the empty cookie container when someone clears their throat from behind him. He turns and tries not to cringe when it’s Germy’s mother, looking as judgemental as ever. “Hi, Mrs. Germain,” Jack says. “How are you?” 

“I’m well, thank you,” Denise says. “Listen, Jack, I owe you an apology for what I said back in September. You’ve been nothing but great with the team, and I clearly misjudged you. I’m sorry.”

Jack is taken completely off guard. He hadn’t ever been expecting an apology, much less one that seems as genuine as this one does. “I, uh. Thank you,” he stammers out. “I try.”

Denise nods. “Léonce never has anything but good things to say about you, so it must be working.” She smiles at him. “Anyway, I’m going to get back to him before he gets into trouble, but I just didn’t want you to go on resenting me.”

“I wasn’t—” Jack protests, because he genuinely hadn’t held it her protectiveness against her, but Denise waves him off. 

“You have a good holiday, okay?” She pats him on the shoulder. 

Jack nods. “You, too,” he says. 

She goes off to where Germy is sitting at one of the tables, and Jack stays standing where he is for a minute, trying to process what just happened. His attempt is cut short by Molly coming up to him and grabbing his hand. “Come on, Coach Z,” he says, tugging. “Come skate with us.” 

Jack drops the cookie container he’s been holding back onto the table and lets himself be dragged out into the ice area. “Why, what are you doing?” he asks, thinking that they probably want someone to referee a game they’re playing or something.

Molly shrugs—or, at least, Jack thinks he does. It’s hard to tell through his gigantic coat. “Just skating,” he says.

Molly lets go of Jack’s hand when they get to the ice and takes off his skate guards in record time before skating off and stopping a few metres away from the door to wait for Jack. Jack takes his time removing his skate guards and tossing them on top of the haphazard pile the boys have made.

“Coach Z!” Garden yells from the other side of the rink, waving frantically. He glides straight into Rebel, who grabs his hand and steadies him before he can actually fall. Jack shakes his head fondly. 

He’s barely gotten out on the ice before Monty tackles him, knocking him down and laughing the entire time. “Keep your fuckin’ head up, Coach Z! Look at what happens if you don’t!” 

Jack shakes his head, exasperated. “Don’t swear,” he says by rote. “And it’s not like we’re playing a game out here, you should be more careful.” 

Monty shrugs, skating away backwards. “We’re careful as shit,” he says. 

Jack sighs. Chicken skates up beside him and peers down at him. “Coach Z,” he says very seriously, “I need you to do me a favour.” 

“Sure,” Jack says, getting to his feet. “What is it?” 

That’s how he ends up carrying a whooping Chicken on his back down the ice and back for no reason other than Chicken thinking it would be funny. To be fair, he’s right.

Jack stays out on the ice goofing off with the boys for another fifteen minutes before he manages to convince them he needs to go back in to where it’s warm. A few of them troop after him and run off to get hot chocolate as soon as they remember it’s an option. Jack sits down at an empty table and is soon joined by Coach Leclair. 

“You look like you’ve been having fun,” Coach Leclair says. 

Jack gives him a close-lipped smile. “Yeah,” he agrees.

“You’re so great with the kids, though,” Coach Leclair continues. “You’re doing even better than I thought you would.”

“Thank you,” Jack says immediately. “I think so, too—I mean, I’m doing better than I thought I was going to do.” 

Coach Leclair smiles. “Good, that’s great to hear. I hope you’re as glad to be here as we are to have you.” 

It's not like Jack didn't know Coach Leclair was happy with his work, but the compliment gets to him anyway. He nods, unable to formulate words. 

“Good talk,” Coach Leclair says, clapping Jack on the shoulder. 

—

The two weeks surrounding Christmas are empty in the Conquérants’ schedule, so Jack gets to have them off. They’re not leaving for California, their selected ‘somewhere warm’, until three days into his break, and by his first day off, he’s already wondering what he’s supposed to do with all this free time. He’s absentmindedly watching TV in the loft when his dad wanders up the stairs and sits down on the chair opposite the couch.

“Hey,” he says after a moment. “What are you watching?”

Jack frowns. “Something on the History Channel,” he says. 

“Ah,” Bob says. “So, have you got your mother a Christmas present yet?” 

Jack frowns. “Um… yeah,” he says. He’d done all his Christmas shopping in November; it’s all neatly stacked in his closet, ready to be wrapped (and prepared for shipping, in most cases) sometime in the next few days.

“Well, shit,” Bob says, “I haven’t. I wanted to know if you’d come shopping with me.” 

Jack shrugs. “Now?” 

“Ideally,” Bob says. “Mom’s out for lunch with one of her committees.”

“Sure,” Jack agrees. 

“Great,” Bob says, getting to his feet quickly, as if he thinks Jack is about to change his mind. “Meet you in the garage in five?” 

“Okay,” Jack says. 

It doesn’t take him that long to change out of his sweatpants and into jeans and grab his winter clothes. He makes it to the garage in more like three minutes, but Bob is already there, waiting by his car. “You sure you’re going to be warm enough?”

Jack tugs his toque down over his ears and makes a face. “We’re not even going to be outside for very long,” he points out. 

“Still, you can never be too careful,” Bob says, opening the car door. Jack rolls his eyes and goes around to get in the other side. 

Bob pauses after hitting the garage door open button and starting up the car. “So,” he says, “where are we going?” 

Jack stares at him. “To get Mom a present?” 

“No, right, I know,” Bob says. “But where?”

“Well… what do you want to get for her?” Jack asks. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Bob says. “What does she need?” 

“Probably nothing,” Jack points out. “It’s more what she wants.”

Bob frowns. “Well, I don’t know what she wants, either. What did you get her?” 

“A new yoga mat and a Lululemon gift card,” Jack says. 

“Oh,” Bob says, “that’s good, she likes yoga.”

“I know,” Jack says. He sometimes goes to yoga with his mom; it’s pretty relaxing for both of them. He wonders how long they’re going to sit here before they figure out where to go. Knowing his dad, it could be awhile. “So what else does she like?” 

“She probably won’t like it if I get her more jewellery,” Bob mutters contemplatively. “Clothes, maybe, though? I can get her a gift card, like you said… We go to shows sometimes, but she can get tickets to those herself for cheaper than I could.” He stares intently at the steering wheel, then abruptly looks up at Jack. “Oh! She likes gardening?”

jack nods. “Yeah. We can get her something for the garden? A new book of techniques or something, maybe?”

“Sure,” Bob agrees. “There, that gives us an idea of somewhere to go.” 

They end up at the local gardening centre, wandering aimlessly around the aisles of knick-knacks and garden supplies. Jack isn’t entirely sure there’s any rhyme or reason to the organization of the place. He finds a rack of books, but none of them seem like something his mother would like to read, so he wanders away from that pretty quickly. He ends up getting distracted by the aisle of whimsical garden decorations until he convinces himself they don’t need any of that, either, and goes to see where his dad has gotten off to.

He finds Bob back in the book section, reading a book on how to build the perfect shed. Jack takes it out of his hands and puts it back on the shelf. “Mom doesn’t want to build a shed,” he says sternly.

“But I could—” Bob starts. 

Jack gives him a doubtful look. “No, you couldn’t.”

Bob sighs. “I probably couldn’t,” he agrees. “What about you, have you found anything?” 

Jack shakes his head. Bob looks contemplative. “Maybe a gift card, then?”

“Five minutes and you’re giving up?” Jack teases.

“Well—” Bob starts, then cuts himself off. “Oh, there’s someone who works here, let’s ask them.” 

“You go right ahead,” Jack mumbles, following at a safe distance as Bob speedwalks toward the employee. 

The employee turns out to be a middle-aged woman whose nametag says Sylvie, and she’s very helpful once she gets over the fact that Bad Bob Zimmermann just walked up to her. She suggests they get all the things needed to set up an indoor herb garden and helps them pick out which seeds and tiny pots to get. Jack goes to get them a basket and then hangs back while Bob and Sylvie debate. He merely shrugs when they ask for his opinion, and he holds out the basket whenever either of them turn to put something in. 

By the time they’re ready to checkout, Sylvie and Bob are chatting like the best of friends. Jack empties the basket onto the counter, and Sylvie scans and bags the items while still talking about proper herb raising procedures. Bob is nodding along, but Jack knows he’ll forget it all the minute they leave.

“Um,” Jack says cautiously, “sorry to interrupt, but—”

“No problem at all,” Sylvie says. 

“Do you have a book on the subject?” Jack asks. “I know my mom would like to read about it… “

“I think we do, just let me run and check,” Sylvie says.

“Oh,” Jack says, “I can go grab it if you tell me the title?” 

Sylvie shakes her head. “It’s no trouble.”

“You’re in the middle of telling him about mint,” Jack says. “Really, I’ll go.”

Sylvie gives in and tells Jack the title, and Jack goes off to find it. It takes him a minute; the few copies they have are tucked into a corner, almost hidden. When he gets back, Sylvie is done ringing them up and is talking to Bob about hockey. Jack distinctly hears her say the name of his junior team, and his heart floats its way up to his throat. 

“Here,” Jack says, hoping to interrupt the conversation enough that it’ll end entirely. He holds the book out to Sylvie, who takes it and scans it. 

“Did we get everything?” Bob asks.

Both Sylvie and Jack nod, and Sylvie gives Bob the total. “Could I get you to sign my gloves?” she asks while Bob is punching in his PIN.

“Of course,” Bob agrees. “The least I could do for you being so helpful.” 

“It was nothing,” Sylvie says, a blush crawling up the sides of her face. Her gloves turn out to be red ones with the Canadiens logo across the backs, and Bob signs right below one of them with the Sharpie Sylvie hands him. “Jack’s, too?” Sylvie asks hopefully, pushing the other glove in Jack’s direction. 

“Oh,” Jack says, staring blankly at the glove. “I don’t—” He rocks back on the heels of his boots and resists bolting out of the store. He can’t leave his dad to carry all the bags. 

“Oh, please?” Sylvie presses. “You were great playing with that Parson, and he’s tearing up the NHL now. I don’t have any doubts about you.”

Jack really, really did not need the reminder. There’s a reason he never checks up on Kent’s stats, and it’s exactly the way his heart is beating too fast in his chest. He shoots his dad a desperate look, but Bob just shrugs minutely. Jack swears in his head and picks up the Sharpie, scrawling something that barely looks like a signature on the glove. He avoids eye contact, picking up as many of the bags as he can without breaking a pot or something and waiting for his dad to move so that he can too. 

“Thank you so much,” Sylvie says, clutching the gloves to her chest. 

“Our pleasure,” Bob says. “Have a nice day, Sylvie.” 

Jack takes the bags out to the car and puts them in the back practically on autopilot. His hands are ice cold when he gets into the passenger seat of the car, and he fumbles in his jacket pocket for the gloves he stupidly forgot to put on. His dad gets in the car and starts it up, saying something about how nice Sylvie was, but Jack barely hears the words. He concentrates on his breathing and the feel of putting his gloves on one finger at a time. He’s determined not to have a full-blown panic attack; it would only worry his dad, and he really doesn’t want that.

“Thanks for coming along,” Bob says. “Nice to have your help.”

Jack manages a shrug. “Didn’t do much,” he says. It comes out remarkably steady.

“Still,” Bob says. “Got out of the house.”

Jack nods. He certainly did that, although now he kind of never wants to again.

—

Unfortunately, going to California very much requires getting out of the house. They’re all on edge in the Montréal airport, fixing their hats and trying to keep a low profile. Bob signs something for a security guard, but other than that, they make it onto the plane and to LA without being accosted by any Habs fans. 

The beach house they’ve rented is in Laguna Beach and has an unreal view of the ocean from pretty much anywhere you stand. The interior is all shiny counters and pristine furniture, and Jack immediately feels at home. Of course, all he has to do to make that feeling go away is step outside. Plus twenty degrees is a hell of a change from minus twenty. Jack never lets himself get too far from from the sunscreen, but it’s no use—his skin turns light pink within a day anyway.

They set up a small Christmas tree in the living room the first day they’re there and pile the few presents they brought along underneath it. It seems weird at first, the Christmas decorations contrasting with the sunny weather, but in the dim of night, right before they go to bed, the colourful lights look exactly right. 

Jack had some doubts, but it really is a nice vacation. Spending hours out on the beach, alternately taking quick plunges into the surprisingly cold water and reading a book on the sand, is a special brand of relaxing. Jack gets suckered into playing a game of volleyball against both his parents and loses fantastically. He protests that it was unfair and vows to get them back, and the goodnatured put downs they throw at him make him laugh.

In the midst of all the unfamiliarity of California in December, they find a local Midnight Mass to attend. Jack is immediately glad for the sameness of the rows of pews and the quiet buzz of the congregation before the service begins. He doesn’t often attend church anymore—Christmas and, schedule allowing, Easter are pretty much it—but he likes the routine of it. Even this far away from home, the readings and the prayers are the same.

He mostly zones out, going through the motions and saying the words he’s known since he was little. He doesn’t pay any actual attention until they get to the Prayer of the Faithful. Jack dutifully says the right words along with everyone else when the priest says they’re praying for the recovery of someone in the hospital, and then the priest says, “We pause to add our own prayers.”

The silence that follows is loud in that way quiet in church always is, and Jack’s mind races to come up with a prayer to add. His first thought is of the boys on his team—he wants, first and foremost, for them to be happy with or without hockey, so he prays for that. He wonders, suddenly, if Kent is happy. He probably is, what with having everything they ever wanted, but Jack swallows back the lump in his throat and adds him to his prayer anyway, just in case he needs it. 

“Lord, hear our prayer,” he says along with the priest and congregation. 

—

Despite going to bed fairly late after the traditional post-mass hot chocolate with his parents, Jack wakes up early on Christmas morning. His parents are still asleep, and Jack briefly considers waking them up, but he doesn’t need to open presents that badly. He goes for a run instead, taking advantage of the cool morning, and when he gets back, his parents are in the kitchen making coffee, wearing pajamas and wrapped up in fluffy robes. 

“Merry Christmas,” Alicia says. “Coffee?” 

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Jack says. He nods toward the coffee. “Save me some. I need to get changed.”

“You’d better be putting your pajamas back on,” Bob says teasingly. “No proper clothing until after noon, that’s the Christmas Day rule.” 

Jack rolls his eyes. “Okay, Dad,” he says.

Bob laughs. “Merry Christmas, Jack.” 

“Merry Christmas,” Jack echoes, already heading toward the shower. 

He humours his dad by putting his pajamas back on after he showers. Bob beams when Jack comes into the living room, so it’s obviously the right choice. 

“Ah, you found the coffee,” Bob says approvingly, noting the mug in Jack’s hand that he got from the kitchen on the way through. “Good, we can start on presents.” 

Alicia pats the empty space on the couch next to her. “Shall we go oldest or youngest first this year?” 

Jack sits and puts his coffee down on the side table so that he can pick up one of his packages. There are two for him, both from his parents, one mid-size and another very small box, and he’s perfectly all right with waiting to open either of them. “I vote oldest,” he says, turning over the small box speculatively. He puts it back down and looks at his dad expectantly. “Since Dad is so excited,” he adds.

“You heard him, Bob,” Alicia says, smacking Bob lightly in the leg.

“I sure did,” Bob says. “I’ll see what's in this envelope first, I think.” 

The envelope is skydiving lessons from Alicia, which Bob is very pleased about. “Gotta get started on the bucket list,” he jokes. “Thanks, honey.” 

“You’re welcome,” Alicia says with a soft smile. It’s her turn next, and she opens the yoga mat and gift card from Jack. “Oh, _perfect_. I love the colours, Jack, thank you!”

Jack feels the intense satisfaction he only gets from two situations: scoring a perfect goal and selecting the perfect gift. “I figured you’d want to pick clothes out yourself,” he mumbles, indicating the gift card. 

“I’ll get you to help me,” Alicia says firmly. “Go on, your turn now.” 

Jack decides to open the larger gift first. It turns out to be DVD box sets of various history documentaries—there’s one on the American Revolution, two different _Canada: A People’s History_ series, and one about World War II. 

“Now you’ll get to decide what to watch instead of just turning on the History Channel,” Bob says. 

“He’ll blow through these in no time, though,” Alicia says. “Don’t you think, Jack?” 

He laughs. “Yeah, probably. Thanks, these are great.” They are, too. He’d been bracing himself for something hockey-related, but history DVDs are definitely safe territory.

Bob doesn’t have to be prompted to open his gift from Jack, and he carefully turns over the hockey stick tie clip and matching cufflinks, admiring them from different angles. “These are nice,” he says appreciatively. He brings the box up to eye level, squinting at the little pieces of metal. “Are these little black gemstones real?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says. 

“Very nice,” Bob says. “They’ll match anything, that’s great. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jack says. He’s fairly sure Bob’s intense scrutiny means he likes it, but it’s not as obvious an indicator as open excitement about something. He supposes it’s hard to get excited about a tie clip and cufflinks, though.

Alicia is enthusiastic about her winter herb garden supplies, though, and Bob gives Jack more credit for helping than he really deserves. Jack tries to brush off his mother’s thanks, but she, as ever, won’t take no for an answer. Jack gives up pretty fast.

“Okay, last one,” Bob says, gesturing for Jack to go on. “And then we have to figure out how we’re doing this food thing, don’t we.”

Jack carefully unwraps the small box. It looks like a jewellery box, although Jack has no idea what kind of jewellery it might be based on the shape of it, and when he gets the lid off, he discovers that’s because it’s not jewellery at all. Instead, it’s a silver whistle on a neatly coiled cord, a simple ‘Z’ monogrammed on the top. 

“For coaching,” Bob says as if it wasn’t clear. “Rounding up those boys of yours, y’know.”

Jack nods slightly. He can’t stop staring at it; he knows he’s feeling emotional about it, but it’s a weird sort of emotional where he’s not sure whether he wants to cry tears of happiness or sadness. Both, maybe. For all he was expecting a gift that implied he was headed back to professional hockey any day now, he wasn’t at all prepared for one indicating that it was okay if he never returned at all. 

“Thanks,” he says. It doesn’t feel like enough, so he turns and hugs Alicia. She makes a noise of surprise, but she immediately wraps her arms around him and holds on tight.

“You’re welcome,” she murmurs in his ear. Jack holds on for a second longer before pulling away and standing so he can step closer to his dad and reach him for a hug as well. It doesn’t last as long, but Bob claps Jack on the arm a couple times as they pull away.

“Glad you like it, kid,” he says, voice gruff. 

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I’m sure it’ll come in handy.” 

—

With present opening done, they really do have to figure out the food thing. Normally Jack’s grandparents cook Christmas dinner, but they’ve all helped out with it enough that they sort of know what they’re doing when they all work together. Jack is reasonably sure they’re going to have food to eat in a few hours, though he also won’t be surprised if they burn at least one dish. He’s just praying it’s not the ham. 

They misjudge the timing, so everything is ready in time for more of a late lunch than an early supper, but it doesn’t really matter when it’s just them. The yams are slightly burned on the bottom, but if they ignore that, it’s pretty much perfect. Alicia takes a picture of the table when it’s got the food spread across it, and then she starts taking pictures of them eating until Bob tells her to put the camera down and eat her food. 

There’s a cursory effort at cleaning up immediately post-lunch, but in the end they all take large slices of the store-bought pie to the couch. It takes hardly any effort at all to find _A Christmas Carol_ on TV, and Jack lets himself sink down into the couch to watch.

Even though he hadn’t wanted to go anywhere for Christmas, he has to admit that this is nice. It’s easy to only have to deal with his parents, both of whom are in great moods, and Jack hadn’t realized how good getting away from Montréal would feel until it actually happened. 

It’s different, like so many things in Jack’s life these days, but it’s a good kind of different. It’s the kind of different that feels like a step in the right direction. 

Later, when _A Christmas Carol_ is over and they’ve finally convinced each other that cleaning up was a thing they had to get done, Bob looks out the window and makes a comment about not being able to make snow angels. Alicia gets this glint in her eyes, and minutes later, Jack finds himself lying in the sand next to his dad, both of them making sand angels. He feels ridiculous, but his mother is grinning and taking pictures, so he smiles and makes another one for good measure.

Alicia sends all their pictures to her parents and gets a bunch in return, and then they decide to Skype with the entire family. Bob tries to get Jack to help him make it work, and Jack fails miserably, but Alicia figures it out and establishes the connection. It’s shitty, the video grainy and too many people trying to talk at once on both ends, but they make it work. 

“Well, we sure miss you here, don’t get me wrong,” Jack’s grandmother says, “but it doesn’t matter how far apart we are. Hearing your voices makes Christmas feel just right.” 

Jack completely agrees. When he crawls into bed that night, it’s to the sound of his parents talking softly to each other on the other side of the wall, the loud noise of the Skype call a fond and not at all stressful memory. 

—

Two days before the new year and a day before their flight back to Montréal, Jack is getting started on packing when his phone vibrates with a text from Cyrille that says: _‘Just saw tiger and bear in grocery store. So awkward, worst.’_

Jack laughs when he reads it; he knows exactly what she means. It’s always weird to encounter one of the kids somewhere outside of the rink—they get all bug-eyed and excited that he actually exists and has a life, and Jack never knows how he’s supposed to act. 

_‘At least it wasnt chicken,’_ he painstakingly types back. _‘Hes prone 2 jumpin on u.’_

 _‘Oh dear, you’re right. Tiger and bear are quiet in comparison,’_ Cyrille sends back much faster than Jack would have been able to. Jack is in the middle of typing a response when another text appears. _‘Are you still in CA?’_

Jack sighs and erases what he’d been saying to respond with, _‘Yes, flight tomorrow.’_

_‘Nice! Bringing me back anything good? :)’_

Jack did buy Cyrille a customized keychain with her name on it at a gift shop because he remembered her complaining that they never have her name on the standard ones, but he’s not about to ruin any surprises. _‘Maybe,_ ’ he replies.

 _‘Ooooh,’_ Cyrille responds. Jack is trying to figure out what to say to that when she adds, _‘Tbh I’m so bored rn.’_

 _‘Sry,’_ Jack says. And then, because he doesn’t really want to keep packing, he adds, _‘Me too tho.’_

 _‘How!!!’_ Cyrille says. _‘You’re in CALIFORNIA. Actually, idea, wanna skype so you can show me the beach?’_

That's unexpected. Jack briefly wonders if this is just because she's _that_ bored or if she actually wants to talk to him, then decides it doesn't really matter either way. ‘ _OK,’_ he replies, and after a moment, follows it up with his Skype username. He gets his laptop out of its bag and sits on his bed to power it up, and by the time he opens Skype, there’s a contact request from Cyrille waiting for him. He accepts, and a few moments later his computer starts obnoxiously ringing. 

It takes a bit for Cyrille’s video to resolve into something that isn’t just a blur, and Jack’s must at the same time because Cyrille grins wide and a tinny version of her laugh filters through the laptop speakers. “Nice sunburn, Zimmermann,” she says. 

“Screw you,” Jack says automatically, then backtracks. “Um, I mean, it’s not my fault the sun—”

Cyrille is still laughing at him. “Yeah, yeah, you’re soaking up the rays,” she says. “I’ll have you know that it’s snowing here.”

Jack perks up. “Is it?” 

“A bit,” Cyrille says. “Of course you’d be excited about it.” She rolls her eyes and smiles at him again. 

Jack shrugs. “You’d be excited too if you were surrounded by sand for this long,” he points out. “We had to make sand angels instead of snow ones.”

“I think you underestimate my love of the sun,” Cyrille says. “Although that does sound like it would result in sand ending up places that you really do not want sand to end up.”

“Exactly,” Jack says grimly. 

Cyrille laughs. “Come on, you’re on a laptop, right? Take me out to see the sun.”

Jack obeys, carrying his laptop out of his room and out onto the deck before turning it so the camera can see the beach. Cyrille makes an appropriately appreciative noise and then sighs wistfully.

“It looks so nice, I’m unspeakably jealous,” she says. 

“Sorry,” Jack says, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say. He can’t see anything on his screen with the glare from the sun, and it’s unnerving him. He stands awkwardly for another few moments before deciding that the beach can’t be _that_ exciting to look at for so long through a shitty Skype connection and going inside. He sits down at the kitchen table and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to say now.

He comes up empty, but thankfully Cyrille fills the silence. “Sand aside, have you had a good vacation?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Very relaxing. How was your Christmas?” 

Cyrille sighs. “Not as relaxing as California, but not awful, either. I’ve been enjoying the time off from school, that’s for sure. Finals were brutal, did I tell you about my Exercise Physiology class?” 

She’s mentioned it before, but never in depth, so Jack shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Oh, are you ever in for a treat. This professor is the _worst_ ,” Cyrille says, and then she proceeds to tell Jack all about the clusterfuck of a class she had to take. Jack is happy to listen and ask for more details when she shows signs of thinking she’s been rambling for too long.

“Doesn’t anybody at McGill have any organizational skills?” Jack asks in horror when the conversation comes to a bit of a lull.

“Somebody, maybe, but not this prof,” Cyrille says. 

“Scary,” Jack says. 

“Yes, very,” Cyrille agrees. “Anyway, I’m praying for competent professors and easy yet challenging classes next semester. That’s not too much to ask for, right?” 

She laughs at herself, but Jack just shrugs. “What are you going to do with your degree?” he asks, suddenly realizing she’s never said before. “You have another year after this one, right?”

Cyrille nods. “I’m not entirely sure because there are a lot of options with Kinesiology,” she says, “but I like the idea of eventually working my way into a management position at some kind of athletic association.”

“That’s cool,” Jack says. “You’d be good at that. I mean, if you could get past all the paperwork, of course.”

“Oh, shut up,” Cyrille says. “And thank you. You didn’t disguise the fact that that was a compliment.” There’s a pause, and then Cyrille laughs. “I was about to turn the question around on you, but I guess you’re not a student! I’m so used to only talking to people from school.” 

Jack shrugs, uncomfortable. “I don’t have any plans, anyway,” he says, trying to make a joke. It falls remarkably flat to his ears, but Cyrille doesn’t comment on it. 

“I’ll tell you what though,” she says instead, “I’m looking forward to getting back on the ice with the kids. How about you? Ready to come home and get back to work?” 

That, at least, is a simple question. “Yeah,” Jack says, “absolutely.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Kent Parson**  
Sweet new digs  
[ _image description_ : an open-concept dining room, living room, and kitchen. the walls are all painted white. the only furniture is a leather couch dividing the dining room and kitchen and a large flat-screen TV directly opposite it.]  
6:02 PM | 01-05-10

 **Kent Parson**  
Where the magic happens  
[ _image description_ : a king-size bed made up with navy blue bedding. a twin-size, worn-out green plaid comforter is rumpled up on one side of it.]  
6:06 PM | 01-05-10

 **Kent Parson**  
By magic I mean sleeping. Bcuz I sleep a lot  
6:12 PM | 01-05-10

 **Kent Parson**  
Not a bad view either  
[ _image description_ : the Las Vegas Strip at night from a high-rise apartment building]  
7:04 PM | 01-05-10

 **Kent Parson**  
Come visit anytime  
10:43 PM | 01-05-10

—

It’s easy to get back into the swing of things. The kids are all excited to get back on the ice after winter break, and after they allot a few minutes for everyone to tell the coaches their favourite present, they get to work. 

Jack doesn’t have to do much for the first half of practice because it’s all skating exercises led by Cyrille. He follows along at the back of the pack of kids, but it’s mostly mindless stuff. After that, they split the boys up into groups by position for more specific drills. 

The centres are working on their faceoffs today. Jack likes helping with that—he’s always been pretty good at faceoffs, and it’s easy to drop puck after puck and offer suggestions for the kids to improve their form. 

To start, Chicken and Germy are paired up to practice while Gaudy is with Bergey. Jack alternates between them for awhile before they enlist Rebel and Mountie for puck dropping duties so Jack can watch. 

Chicken and Germy are fairly well-matched—Germy loses a little more often, but not too badly. Bergey, however, keeps beating Gaudy every time. Jack lets it go on for a bit, observing, and then switches Bergey with Germy. Gaudy keeps losing, and nothing Jack suggests—getting down lower, changing his grip—seems to help. He swaps Germy and Chicken mostly so that it’s fair, but Chicken is their best faceoff guy, so that just makes Gaudy’s frustration more evident. Jack declares the drill over pretty quickly after that. 

Cyrille is on dressing room supervision today, so Jack only watches as Gaudy practically stomps his way into the dressing room after practice. He exchanges a wary look with Cyrille, and she shrugs at him. Jack knows she’s got it in hand (if there even ends up being anything to have in hand), so he goes off to the office to check the team email. 

He’s squinting at an email with a bus confirmation for the upcoming tournament when Gaudy appears in the doorway of the office. He’s still got most of his gear on, and he’s holding his helmet in his hand. “Coach Z?” he says. 

Jack stands and gestures for Gaudy to come in. “What’s up?” he asks, closing the door behind Gaudy.

“Can I stay and practice faceoffs more?” he asks. “I asked Coach Leclair, and he said if you or Cyrille stayed with me, then I could until someone needs the ice.”

There’s something in Jack that wants to tell this determined kid to go home, to relax, to come back and try again tomorrow. He wants to tell him that he doesn’t have to be perfect at everything, that it’s still early enough in his life that he could switch to being a winger, that he doesn’t have to be anyone’s number one centre in order to be worth something. 

He recognizes the red face and the set of Gaudy’s jaw, though. He knows the look in his eyes too well. Jack can imagine Gaudy awake in the middle of the night, running over all the ways he’s not good enough in his head, all the ways he could have tried harder. If spending a little extra time on the ice lessens that a bit—well, the choice seems simple.

“Sure,” Jack says. “I’ll stay with you. Is anyone staying to be your opponent?” 

Gaudy nods. “Grenzy said he would for a bit.” 

“Let’s get back out there, then,” Jack says, opening the office door and ushering Gaudy through it. “I think there’s a Midget Espoir game tonight, so we need to hurry.”

“Thanks, Coach Z,” Gaudy says, flashing Jack a grin.

“You’re welcome,” Jack says. He’s not sure he deserves the gratitude for encouraging this kind of work ethic, but it makes him feel better to see Gaudy happy, anyway.

—

They get the actual full schedule for the tournament on January 15th, and after that it’s like time speeds up. There’s so much to do and so little time to do it in, and even though it’s not like Jack is in charge of the entire thing—he does not envy Coach Leclair one bit—he still feels a little overwhelmed with it. 

It doesn’t help that this tournament is a big deal—it’s only Pee-Wee, but it’s high profile enough to get coverage from hockey media. He remembers going to the tournament when he was young and being interviewed by a couple reporters. There’s no way it won’t be a story that Jack shows up there after being in rehab and refusing any interviews. Even if he didn’t have to do much, just going would be stressful. Jack refuses to let that stop him, though; he’ll put his head down and do his work, and that’ll be that. 

One of the more difficult tasks he’s given responsibility for is assigning roommates. They’re going to be in Québec City for twelve days, and they have nine hotel rooms to put nineteen kids in. It seems like a simple enough task—he just has to assign everyone a roommate and figure out which room should have three.

It’s not simple. He starts pairing them alphabetically, but that ends with Bear and JT in a room with Roddy, and he knows those three can’t be trusted to be on their best behaviour when they’re together. He tries making just a few changes to fix it, but everything he does leads to a new combination that he doesn’t think is a good idea for one reason or another.

He ends up sitting at the dining room table after dinner with a bunch of post-it notes, one for each boy’s name, spread out in front of him. He keeps moving them around, trying to find something that works, but nothing sticks. 

Eventually Bob wanders in, a newspaper in one hand, and sits down near Jack. Jack thinks maybe he just read an article he wants to talk to Jack about—he does that sometimes because he thinks it helps them bond or something, which he’s not exactly _wrong_ about—but the casual way he opens the newspaper up and looks at it betrays that he’s actually here to make sure Jack is okay. His parents always get nervous if they see him working on one thing for too long.

Despite this realization, Jack chooses not to say anything, so it’s a few minutes and a couple moved post-it notes before Bob lowers his newspaper slightly and says, “What are you doing?” 

“Trying to assign roommates for the Québec City tournament,” Jack says. 

Bob raises an eyebrow. “That takes all this?”

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” Jack admits.

“What’s the problem?” Bob asks, putting the newspaper down entirely now.

“Well, right now I’ve somehow got Armand and Léonce in the same room, and they don’t get along,” Jack says, gesturing He sees Bob’s questioning look and adds, “Léonce’s pretty prone to colds and isn’t the most hygienic kid, and Armand is very… clean.” 

Bob nods. “What if you swap these two?” he asks, switching one of the post-its Jack had indicated with another, seemingly random, one.

Jack inspects the change. Germy is with Roddy now, which is fine, but Gaudy is with Grenzy. “Devyn is Armand’s best friend,” Jack explains. 

“All right, and?” Bob asks. 

“They’ll keep each other up all night,” Jack says. He’s reasonably sure that, even as responsible as these kids are, this is true; it had been for him and Kent. 

“So the kids aren’t allowed any fun?” 

Jack frowns. “What? No, of course they can have fun.”

“Well, they can’t room with someone they don’t like and they can’t room with someone they do,” Bob says. “Sounds a little like you’re overthinking this.” 

“It’s my job,” Jack says. It comes out a bit more snappish than he meant it to, and he cringes slightly. Bob looks unperturbed. 

“You can always switch them if it’s causing a problem when you’re there,” Bob says gently.

That option had honestly not occurred to Jack at all, but he immediately hates it. “That would mean I got it wrong,” he says, keeping his eyes focused on the table. 

“You can’t predict how they’re going to act,” Bob says. “Sure, you’re good at your job, so you can guess pretty accurately, but it’s not one hundred percent.” He smiles ruefully. “Not much is.” 

Jack shrugs and doesn’t say anything. He moves Gaudy to a room with Rebel, and Grenzy with Monty. It’s still not great; Grenzy and Monty are both talkative and easily excitable, and they would probably keep each other up all night too. 

“You want my advice?’ Bob asks. Jack doesn’t move; he doesn’t want advice at all, but he doesn’t want to say no, either. Bob doesn’t wait for an answer, in any case. “Put everyone with their best friend. Let them have a little fun while they still can.” 

Jack forces a smile and tries not to think of all the times Bob told him to have fun while he still could when Jack already wasn’t having fun. “Maybe,” he says through gritted teeth, watching Bob get up. Bob claps him on the shoulder and wanders out of the room, newspaper rolled up neatly in his hand. 

Jack crumples up all the post-it notes. He’ll just room the kids by alphabetical order.

—

Even as the off-ice work multiplies, practices get intense. They spend a lot of time running drill after drill, switching up the lines for scrimmages, and then switching them back. They run overtime and have to be told to get off the ice on more than one occasion. 

They also spend a considerable amount of time watching game tape of the teams they’ll be up against at the tournament. The best of the best Pee-Wee teams from around the world will be there, and it pays to know just how to exploit the other teams’ weaknesses. It can be the difference between making the next round and getting knocked off the chart.

It’s not like they’re taking it to major junior levels, but it still reminds Jack of his time there an uncomfortable amount. He watches Bear and JT sitting in the front of the room, both intent on the TV screen, and sees himself and Kent. He tries to shake it, but—there’s something about being stressed that means Kent is on the brain way more than usual. 

Jack is still thinking about game tape when, at the beginning of his last therapy session in January, Julie asks him how he’s been doing. “Is the stress any less this week?” 

“I’m fine,” Jack says, intentionally not answering the question. “It’s rough, but I’m not in it alone.”

Julie nods. “No, and it’s good that you recognize that. Do you feel like you have a better support system lately?”

“I guess,” Jack says. “Sure. Yeah.” He frowns. “This isn’t really the same as how I felt before, though.”

“No?” Julie asks. “How is it different?”

“Well, uh… it’s not really about me, is it? All the details and setting stuff up is, but I have help with that, and even though the intensity makes me think about Kent, I’m not actually under any pressure to, like… prove myself?”

“You’ve been thinking about Kent?” Julie asks. She doesn’t sound surprised, exactly, but her tone distinctly makes Jack remember that he hadn’t mentioned that before. He’s always careful to just say ‘the Q’ or ‘before’, and he’s sure Julie knows what that actually means, but. It’s safer.

He shrugs. “A bit.”

“Have you been talking to him?”

Jack shakes his head. Kent used to text and call him pretty regularly, and he still does every so often, but Jack never responds. 

“Okay,” Julie says easily. “What do you think makes you associate stress with Kent?”

Jack doesn’t know, really. He just knows that they’re all wrapped up in each other, tied intrinsically to the anxious prickle across his skin, and he hates thinking about it. He shrugs.

“Did Kent contribute to your stress in the Q?” Julie asks. 

“I don’t know,” Jack says.

“Well, if he did, did it come from him expecting things from you or from you watching his success?” Julie pauses, waiting, then adds, “Or something else?” 

“He didn’t,” Jack says, trying to end this thread of conversation. He can feel his heart beating too hard in his throat. 

“Okay,” Julie says. “You already said you associate being stressed with him. There must be a reason for that, don’t you think? If he wasn’t a cause of your stress, then what would it be?”

Jack shrugs again. “I don’t know.” 

“Do you think that maybe it’s because he was always there? Maybe you associate him with the need to be better, even if the association is only subconscious?”

“I don’t know,” Jack repeats. He forces himself not to clench his hands into fists and concentrates on breathing normally. 

“Do you feel like you need to measure up to him?” Julie tries.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack snaps. “I already don’t, and I don’t need the reminder.” 

“It does matter,” Julie says, as measured as ever. Just once, Jack would like to incite some sort of actual reaction from her. “You’ve been saying you’re stressed for awhile now—I think from what you’ve said it’s only getting worse, yes?”

She waits for a response, one expectant eyebrow raised. Jack shrugs and nods minutely.

“So we have options,” she continues. “We can work on strategies to try to immediately lessen your stress, but we can also figure out the root of the problem and deal with that. You’re not going to truly feel better until we do that.”

“I think I’m doing fine,” Jack says. “It’s just my job. Stress happens to everyone, right?”

“Sure, stress does,” Julie agrees. “But not to this level, not for this long. It’s not normal, and you shouldn’t have to live with it.” 

Jack can’t imagine living without it. “Fine,” he says. “What were the strategies you were talking about?”

Julie doesn’t respond for a moment, just looking at Jack, but then she nods. “Okay,” she says, and then she launches into a list of different things Jack can do to try and minimize stress. Jack tries his best to listen, nodding all the while. There’s no way he’s avoided the Kent questions for good, but if he can just keep putting it off, then that’s what he’s going to do. 

—

By the time Jack gets home from therapy, he’s feeling even worse than usual. All he wants to do is eat lunch and then go lie down in his room for an extended period of time—a Julie-endorsed task, he’s sure. Doing nothing is relaxing. He’ll be stress free in no time.

He’s staring into the pantry, trying to figure out what there is to eat that isn’t the same old sandwich, when he hears the distinct sound of the front door closing. A few moments later, Alicia wanders into the kitchen and puts her purse down on the island. Jack glances over and nods a hello. She’s wearing nice clothes, so she must have had a meeting for something or other. 

Jack hopes she’s not planning on starting a conversation. The outlook is good for a few minutes—she opens the fridge and starts taking the ingredients for salad out without saying anything—but then she sits down at the island and sighs. “God, I just sat through the longest meeting of my life, I think,” she says. 

Jack grabs for a loaf of bread, hoping to get a sandwich made and get out of the kitchen before the inevitable happens, but it’s too late. “Did you just get home from therapy?” Alicia asks. “How did it go?” 

Normally Jack’s response to that question is a shrug and a few-word answer that boils down to it being fine. Today, he’s keyed up and not in the mood, and he’s saying, “Awful, I hate it,” before he really thinks it through. 

Alicia looks up from the lettuce in surprise. “That bad?” she asks. Her tone is already a sickly-sweet tone of sympathy, and it only serves to annoy Jack more. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No,” Jack says, “I’m sick of talking about shit. I don’t want to talk about it with Julie, I don’t want to talk about it with you, I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

“We’re just trying to help,” Alicia tries, but Jack is already talking over her, on a roll.

“There isn’t even anything to talk about! It’s just the same damn thing, over and over. Why can’t anyone ever leave me alone?”

“That’s not fair,” Alicia says, her voice hardening. “We left you alone before and look what happened.” 

Familiar guilt overwhelms Jack at that. It’s his fault for making them trust him enough to leave him alone; he convinced them he didn’t need help when he did, and then he took their trust and ruined everything. The guilt is overwhelming, but it’s not enough to stop his fight-or-flight instinct. Jack forces a laugh and goes in for the kill, hoping it’ll end this argument. “Oh yeah, whoops, fucked that up, didn’t you?” 

It works. Alicia’s jaw drops slightly, and Jack can see tears spring to her eyes. She looks like she just got punched. “ _Jack_ ,” she says, horrified. “Be reasonable.”

Jack feels awful for making her look like that, but it’s not enough to stop him from continuing. “I _am_ being reasonable. It’s you who thinks there’s something here to fix. There isn’t anything, all right?” Jack is crushing the loaf of bread in his fist, but he can’t bring himself to care. 

“Oh, so you don’t wander around the house looking like you’ve lost everything and ignoring us when we try to reach out?” Alicia asks, her voice raised. “We’re not supposed to try to help you feel like you’re worth something?”

“No, you’re not!” 

“Well, tough shit, Jack! I’m not having a shell for a child for the rest of my life!” 

“Good luck with that, then!” Jack snorts derisively. “I’m going to my room.” 

“Fine!” Alicia says, then visibly takes a breath and repeats it quieter. “Fine. Go.” 

Jack gets a few steps out of the kitchen, then turns around. “Don’t follow me,” he warns.

“I’m not,” Alicia says. 

“Good,” Jack says.

“Good,” Alicia echoes.

It takes until Jack is in his room for him to realize he brought the fucking bread with him. He drops it on the floor next to his bed and lies down, burying his face in his pillow. His mother’s stricken face when he said she fucked up sticks in his head, and he only feels worse about it as the minutes pass and the angry adrenaline wears off. 

He keeps running over the argument in his head, and the more he thinks about it, the more stupid it seems. He knows they’re all working together to fix the distance between them and the assumptions and expectations that forced them so far apart in the first place, and throwing a wrench like this into that just seems counterproductive. 

He keeps wondering if his mom is going to show up at his door and then remembering that he told her not to. It takes a while and a couple repeats of that line of thought before he realizes that he _wants_ her to show up, and a few minutes after that he manages to drag himself off his bed and down the stairs.

Alicia is still in the kitchen, now with a bowl of completely-made salad in front of her. Jack watches as she rearranges it with her fork a couple times before he says, “Mom?” 

She looks up immediately. “Jack,” she says, sounding relieved. 

“I’m sorry,” Jack says quickly. “I was just—on edge. I shouldn’t have said those things to you.” 

Alicia leaves her fork in her salad and stands. Jack meets her halfway and lets her pull him into a hug. “I’m sorry, too,” Alicia says into his ear. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jack says. He means both the argument and his overdose, and the way she hugs him harder kind of makes him think she gets that.

“It wasn’t yours, either,” Alicia says firmly, pulling back but keeping her hands on Jack’s arms. “Okay? We all screwed up, and we’re probably going to keep screwing up.” 

Jack nods. “I’m trying,” he says.

“Me too,” Alicia says with a smile, squeezing Jack’s arms gently. 

Jack gives her a hesitant smile back. 

—

The Québec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament is an annual twelve day long affair in Québec City. It doesn’t even occur to Jack that this means that he’ll be stuck with only the kids, Cyrille, and Coach Leclair for that length of time until they’re boarding the bus.

Jack’s got his clipboard clutched in his hands, and he keeps peering at the sky nervously, hoping the weather doesn’t screw up their trip. They’re waiting for Molly, the only kid who isn’t on the bus yet. Another two minutes and one of them is going to have to call his parents.

“Gonna be just us and these hooligans for twelve days,” Coach Leclair says, clapping Cyrille and Jack on the shoulders. “You ready?”

“Ready!” Cyrille says cheerfully. Jack nods. 

“And it’s blasted cold, so I’m getting on the bus,” Coach Leclair says. “Don’t stay out here too much longer.” 

Cyrille waits until he’s gone before she says, “I don’t know if I’m really ready. All that time with the kids and no breaks?” She laughs. “I might regret making all those arrangements rather than opting to stay here and go to class, to be honest.”

Jack shrugs. “It sounds like normal?” he offers. 

Cyrille laughs like he made a joke, but Jack meant it seriously. Thankfully, he’s saved from having to try to explain himself by a car pulling up and Molly hopping out, dragging his hockey bag behind him. His father is close behind with his suitcase, apologizing for being late and insisting on helping load Molly’s things. They wave off the apologies and let him hug an eye-rolling Molly goodbye before they get on the bus.

Molly jets off to sit next to Roddy, who’s saved him a seat, and Jack takes the very front seat while Cyrille finds a spot closer to the back. Most of the kids have crammed themselves toward the back of the bus, but Tiger is sitting across from Jack, a book already open on his lap. 

It’s about a three hour drive to their hotel in Québec City, and the boys are already moderately loud as they start out on the road. Jack settles in and pulls out his notebook. He’s always been a to do list kind of person, but ever since Julie mentioned time management as part of reducing stress, he’s been even more diligent about it. There’s something inherently settling about checking off items as he does them. He puts an x in the box next to ‘get kids on the bus’ and reads through the rest of his lists just in case. They all seem fine, which is comforting.

Jack is reaching for his bag to swap his notebook for a book when a group of boys burst into a round of the Wheels on the Bus that quickly has everyone singing along. Jack sighs. He can hear Cyrille laughing, and he has half a mind to turn around and roll his eyes at her, but that would be difficult from this far away.

They don’t carry on with that for very long since nobody can agree on what the verses are or what order they go in, but now that they’ve started singing, it appears that they’re not going to stop anytime soon. Jack doesn’t recognize a lot of the songs they’re singing, but the ones he does are English pop songs he heard Kent sing along to in the car what feels like millennia ago. He feels like the kids shouldn’t even know them, it’s been so long.

Across the aisle, Tiger is putting in earbuds with an annoyed look on his face. His grumpiness is hilariously cute enough that Jack would be having a hard time trying not to laugh if he didn’t feel exactly the same. He checks his watch; they’ve only been on the road for just shy of twenty minutes. It’s going to be a long, long bus ride.

—

Jack wakes up to the screech of a generic hotel alarm clock and habitually reaches out to stop it. Coach Leclair beats him, though, and Jack quickly withdraws his hand. He rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of Coach Leclair getting up and ready for the day. 

It’s weird, sharing a room again, especially one that’s so much like every other hotel room Jack’s stayed in throughout his life. So much about it is the same, and it makes Jack notice all the little things about himself that are different that much more. He wonders if Kent ever wakes up in a hotel room and feels wrong, and then he gets out of bed, gets his clothes for the day ready for when Coach Leclair is done with the shower, and actively thinks about something else.

They’d made it to Québec City in the late afternoon yesterday, after hours of chatter and drawing pictures in the frost on the windows and one really tiresome bathroom break at a gas station. Then there had been the whole trial of checking into the hotel, handing out roommate assignments, and making sure everyone found their room all right. By the time they were finished with that, it was supper time, and trying to get the boys to settle down and actually eat their food was not an easy task. 

On the bright side, the boys tired themselves out enough that they went to sleep easily. Jack has a suspicion that that’s not going to last, despite the amount of hockey they’re going to be playing, but he’ll take it. 

An hour after waking up, Jack steps out the door of his room at the same time as Cyrille, in her own room across the hall, steps out of hers. “Oh good,” she says. “I was going to knock.”

Jack nods. “Coach Leclair already went downstairs to check on the bus to the coliseum,” he offers. 

“Ready to make sure the kids are up?” Cyrille asks.

Jack nods. They each take a side of the hallway and walk down it, knocking on doors and not stopping until they get an answer. For the most part the boys are awake already, but a few need to be coaxed into getting up and ready to go. Thankfully, the promise of breakfast is enough.

Breakfast is a sleepy non-event compared to dinner the night before, and Jack thanks his lucky stars that they have all the meals covered for the entirety of the tournament. They get the boys loaded back on the bus after breakfast without a problem, and then it’s off to the tournament. 

The first morning of the tournament is orientation and practices—some off-ice, some on-ice, depending on each team’s schedule—before the first game, which is just after lunch. Jack can tell the kids are starting to get excited as they enter the coliseum and are directed to their dressing room. Jack, on the other hand, keeps glancing around nervously, looking for any journalists who might be looking in his direction. Every minute that passes feels like a countdown to the inevitable moment that someone recognizes him, and it’s hard to concentrate on helping the boys when that’s all he can think about.

He does his best, though it doesn’t feel like enough when he’s deliberately placing himself behind Cyrille half the time instead of staying focused on what they’re supposed to be doing, but it’s fine. He makes it through it all—practice, lunch, losing their first game, the pep talk that follows, supper—and by the time they’re back at the hotel, his anxious paranoia has become a familiar friend.

It’s not like it’s unwarranted. His closest call all day came as they were walking from the building where they get their meals back to the coliseum. He was standing on the corner with a group of kids, waiting for the light to change, and a reporter—it was obvious that’s what she was from the notebook clutched in one hand and the media pass looped around her neck—looked at him and then looked again. 

Jack immediately leaned down to forcibly do up JT’s coat for him, admonishing him for not doing so even though the walk outside was barely two minutes. JT groaned a lot but didn’t seem to pick up on anything weird, and when Jack straightened up again, the reporter was very obviously not looking at him. The light changed, and that was that.

It could have been worse. It could, and probably will, get worse. Jack tries to hope for the best, but, well—that’s never been his experience. 

—

Normally the media doesn’t get overly invested in the tournament until near the end, but there are a few who have passes for the entire thing, and they’re interested in getting as much content as possible. The Conquérants, being a team that participated the year before, are of slightly more interest, especially after they come back from losing their first game to beat their second opponents handily, 6 to 2. 

Jack is walking next to Cyrille and just behind Coach Leclair, on the way to their dressing room, when a reporter stops them.

“My name’s Anthony, I’m from the Gazette. Can I get a quick quote from you?” he asks Coach Leclair. 

Jack looks down and tries to make himself smaller even as Coach Leclair nods his agreement. He can see Cyrille eyeing him with concern, but he ignores it.

“Great,” Anthony says. “How does it feel for the Conquérants to win their second game when this is where they were knocked out last year?”

“We have a strong team this year, I think,” Coach Leclair says diplomatically. Jack tries to figure out if he can slide past them and get away, but the hallway is too small for it to be subtle at all, and Cyrille is in the way. “They’re doing well, and I hope they use the momentum from today and work to keep it up.”

“Do you think the team can make it to the finals this year?” Anthony asks.

Coach Leclair laughs, giving Anthony a friendly smile. “That’s always the goal, right? It’s an honour to be here at all, though.”

“Of course,” Anthony agrees. 

Jack presses back against the wall, trying to make himself a part of it. He wants this to be over right now. Cyrille leans closer to him and whispers, “You okay?” Jack nods and stares at his boots, counting the eyelets over and over while he tries to breathe normally. 

“One last question—does the team benefit from your change in coaching staff?” 

Jack chances looking up and sees that Anthony is looking right at him. _Fuck._

“Obviously better coaching equals better results,” Coach Leclair says, but it’s already clear Anthony isn’t listening to him. 

“Why don’t we ask one of your new coaching staff himself?” Anthony asks. “I assume Jack is one of them? Jack, is this what you’ve been doing since you disappeared last spring?” 

Jack would like nothing better than to run away without answering, but there’s nowhere to go. His heartbeat feels like it might near break his ribs. He tries to nod, but he can’t seem to make himself do anything at all. 

Coach Leclair must take pity on him, because he answers for him. “Yes, Jack is one of my assistant coaches. This is Cyrille Durand, my right hand lady.”

“How are you?” Cyrille asks, stepping forward and sticking her hand out. Anthony gives it a look like he’s not sure what she’s doing, but then shakes it briefly. He ignores Cyrille’s question entirely.

“There are pictures of you with the kids circulating on Twitter,” he tells Jack. “People are speculating. Any comment?” 

Jack has no idea what the fuck that means—what are they speculating, exactly?—and even if he did he wouldn’t have anything to say. He manages to shakes his head this time. His fingernails are digging into his palms with how tightly he’s clenching his fists. 

“Now, I don’t think—” Coach Leclair starts.

“Is the NHL still in your future?” Anthony asks. 

Jack wants to punch him in the face, but the desire comes out as shaking and an inability to even dream of breathing properly. Cyrille steps in front of him. “Hey,” she says coolly, “that doesn’t have anything to do with the kids, does it? I believe you asked for a quick quote and you got it. Shame on you for trying to weasel your way into our good graces just so you could ask Jack about Twitter rumours.”

“I didn’t—” Anthony tries.

“You did,” Cyrille interrupts. “And I hope nobody else is stupid enough to do the same, because I won’t give them the chance to walk away before I demand the number for their employer like I’m going to allow you. Understood?” 

Anthony looks between Cyrille and Coach Leclair like he’s going to argue, but he must decide it’s not worth it, because a moment later he’s gone. Cyrille turns to Jack. “You weren’t okay,” she says, voice soft.

Jack can’t stop shaking. Cyrille puts a well-meaning hand on his arm, and he wrenches it away. “Sorry,” he manages to say shakily.

“No, I’m sorry,” Cyrille says. 

“Let’s get out of this hallway,” Coach Leclair suggests. “Jack, son, you okay to walk?” 

Jack nods, and he manages to make it to the dressing room. Cyrille emphatically gestures for him to sit in a chair just outside it, and he does, trying his best to look normal so he doesn’t freak any of the boys out if they come out of the dressing room. 

Coach Leclair gets him a bottle of water and hands it to him. “Sorry I let that happen.” he says. “Should’ve known, those stupid reporters.”

Jack shakes his head. His head is starting to clear, the panic less all-consuming. “I knew,” he says. “People notice.” 

“Doesn’t give them a right,” Coach Leclair says. “At least Cyrille knew what to do.”

“Some assholes just need a firm talking-to,” Cyrille says, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. It’s so matter-of-fact that it startles a laugh out of Jack. Cyrille grins. “That’s more like it.” 

Jack carefully unscrews the lid of his water bottle and takes a sip. He’d worked himself up so much that he didn’t realize he wouldn’t have to deal with it on his own. It’s a nice surprise.

—

Jack is, weirdly, a lot more relaxed after that. He sometimes catches people clearly looking at him from a distance, but no one approaches him. Coach Leclair and Cyrille are careful to keep him out of any media situations, and Jack is grateful for it. 

The kids aren’t doing terribly, either. The end of the tournament is looming ever closer, and after the first round, losing a game means the team is out. Jack thinks that losing in the first round helped to motivate them, but there’s a lot of talent to lose to here. They’re probably not going to make it to the finals. though Jack likes to hope for at least the semifinals, but they’re holding their own. More importantly, they seem to be having a lot of fun. 

They have a day between games after they win their third, and the boys have more energy than they know what to do with, even with ice time to burn it off in. At the end of the day, it’s a struggle to get them all into their proper rooms for lights out—Cyrille has to drag Jonesy to the right room practically kicking and screaming after he tries to hide behind Bergey’s bed. 

With Coach Leclair out meeting with some of the other coaches, Jack lies awake on his bed and listens for the sound of doors opening and closing. He doesn’t _think_ he actually hears any, but—he keeps thinking he can hear voices. it’s probably worth checking just to make sure everything’s quiet. Maybe he’ll be able to settle enough to sleep if he does.

He walks down the hallway in his sock feet, listening carefully at each door he knows there’s kids behind. He can hear the TV from a few, but that’s all right; some of them fall asleep to it. It’s not until he gets to the end of the hallway that he finds what he must have been hearing: very obvious voices coming from Tiger and Wino’s room. Jack stands outside for a moment, staring in disbelief. He can hear Tiger laughing loudly.

Jack knocks, and the giggling and talking abruptly stops. He grimaces and waits a moment before the faint sounds of whispering start. He sighs and knocks again. “I’m coming in,” he warns as he uses his key card, which is encoded for all of their rooms, to open the door.

When his eyes adjust to the difference between the bright lights of the hallway and the darkness of the room, he can make out Tiger and Wino, both in their beds. Wino looks like he’s pretending innocence as hard as possible, while Tiger looks completely calm save for the way he’s got the bedspread pulled up under his chin like he just got into bed. Jack never would have predicted this from either of them.

“You need to be quiet and go to sleep,” Jack says, putting on his best admonishing tone. “You have a game tomorrow.” 

“We are being quiet,” Wino protests. Tiger nods emphatically. 

“Then why can I hear you all the way down the hallway?” Jack asks. Neither of them have a response for that. Jack nods. “Right. Don’t make me come back here. I won’t hesitate to move you to different rooms for the rest of the tournament, do you hear me?” 

There’s a long silence, and then: “We hear you,” Tiger says begrudgingly. 

“Good,” Jack says. “Goodnight, boys.”

They both grumble goodnight to him, and Jack carefully closes their door. He waits for a minute, and when they don’t make any obvious noise, he makes his way back up the other side of the hallway. Everyone else is quiet, and Jack thanks his lucky stars. He thinks he’s reached his reprimand quota for the day.

Jack goes back to his room and gets ready for bed. Coach Leclair won’t be back for another hour or so, but the fast pace of working day in and day out is starting to wear on Jack. An early night can only be a good thing for everyone involved. 

He makes himself a nest of pillows before turning out the lights and lying there listening for a few quiet moments. The familiar buzzing of the heater in the corner makes his mind wander to past hotel stays, and then he’s thinking about how strange it is to be the one to tell boys to be quiet rather than being one of the boys himself. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time, which makes no sense. Jack wishes any of his feelings actually made sense to him, but even after months of talking about them every week, he doesn’t get it. 

He’s missing therapy sessions to be here, though, two of them. He hadn’t realized how off-kilter it was going to make him feel. Julie had told him he could call her whenever, but he’s supposed to do that if he needs to anytime, so it doesn’t feel right just to call because he… what? Doesn’t like being trapped with only himself to talk to? Can’t cope without having his weekly non-conversation about his feelings? That’s not an emergency by any stretch of the imagination. 

Jack has been thinking about his father’s advice about letting the kids have fun a lot lately. It keeps repeating in his head, the sense memory of Bob clapping his shoulder replaying when he closes his eyes. He turns the TV on in an attempt to drown it out. There’s a History Channel documentary on that Jack’s seen before at least twice, and he smiles wryly to himself. At least he can always count on this.

—

They lose their fourth game in overtime. The kids are upset right after, muttering to each other about all of the things they could have done better, but then Bear stands up and reminds everyone how much farther they made it this year than the one before. 

“And all you guys that are gonna be on this team next year,” Bear says, pointing at Chicken and Lion because they’re right in front of him and then gesturing vaguely, “you gotta come back here and kick their butts. For the Conquérants’ honour.” 

“For honour!” a bunch of the boys chorus. Bear sits down, self-satisfied. It’s warranted—the vibe of the dressing room improves tenfold. 

They still get to stay until the end of the tournament, but it’s a lot more relaxed when they don’t have a set schedule. They attend games, sitting up in the stands and cheering for both teams no matter who they are, and Jack and Cyrille badger the boys into doing the homework packages they’ve been neglecting. Of course, all the free time and no hockey to focus on doesn’t make for children who are particularly easy to be responsible for. By the time the tournament is over and they have to get back on the bus, Jack is exhausted and ready to take a few days off. 

He swaps with Cyrille this time and sits near the back of the bus. It means the boys rope him into doing a puzzle book with them instead of letting him nap like he wants to, but it’s not that bad. It’s a lot quieter than the drive up to Québec City had been, at least. 

The team seems a little wistful, but every time someone looks too sad, someone else will punch them in the shoulder and either remind everyone about their promise or distract them with a joke or story. Two hours into the drive, JT looks up from elbowing a sad-looking Rebel and says, “Hey, Coach Z—you got any good stories from the Q?”

Jack’s knee-jerk reaction is to say no, but he stops himself and thinks about it. The boys all look interested even if they’re pretending not to be, and Rebel looks the most hopeful. Jack nods carefully. “Yeah, uh… maybe one,” he says. “Just the one, though.”

JT nods excitedly. “I wanna hear it.” 

“Okay,” Jack says, thinking fast, “so. This happened the night before a kind of big game—we’d been losing, and we really needed the points because we were not that good of a team. Everyone was tense because the coaches had all reamed us out and told us we needed to try harder if we wanted to win.”

“Scary,” Garden says.

Jack nods. “Yeah. We were never allowed to break curfew, obviously, but we’d specifically been reminded this time, and there was this guy on the team, one of the older guys.” He pauses, trying to think of a way to describe Toaster in a way that doesn’t include any reference to alcoholism or his reckless, not-giving-a-shit attitude. He gives up quickly. “He was twenty, and he wanted to go out that night. He told us all he was going to, and we all told him not to, but.” He shrugs.

The boys are all staring at him expectantly, and it makes him forget where he was going with this for a second. “Oh, this was my first year, so I was pretty small,” he remembers to add. “My roommate and I were at the end of the hallway in the hotel by the exit that was away from where the staff were staying, and sometime after curfew we heard people talking in hushed whispers outside our door. So, uh. We looked out and saw one of the boys that was even smaller than me blocking the exit and telling this huge guy that he couldn’t leave.” 

“Whoa,” Jonesy breathes.

“Did the big guy crush him?” Grenzy asks, eyes wide. 

Jack stifles a laugh, both at Grenzy’s face and at the idea of it—there’s no way Toaster could ever catch Kent in order to crush him. Size-wise, definitely, though, so Jack says, “I think he could have, but no. The little guy told the big one that he would sneak into his room while he was passed out on the bathroom floor when he got back and shave off all his hair, and then he would have to explain to management and his girlfriend what had happened.” The boys are snickering at that. “I guess he sounded pretty scary, because the older guy went back to his room right away. And, uh… we won the game the next day. So. Yeah.”

“Awesome,” JT says.

“Was the younger guy Kent Parson?” Rebel asks. Jack tries not to visibly cringe and shrugs instead. 

“It is!” Lion pipes up from a few seats back. “It has to be, there wasn’t anyone else smaller than Coach Z.”

“Is that true?” JT asks.

Jack sighs. “Yes,” he forces himself to say. “And he went first overall, so the moral of the story is to never break curfew.”

A few of the boys, JT and Rebel included, roll their eyes at that, but a fair amount nod seriously. Jack feels incredibly old, telling stories and imparting wise advice. He almost laughs aloud at that thought—he never thought there would be a time when he’d have anything resembling good advice about something that didn’t happen on the ice. And yet, here he is, more than half a year away from the day he was supposed to join the NHL, telling a bus full of kids a story. It’s not what he pictured, but it’s not rock bottom, either. 

—

Their first day back is a Monday, and they have it off, so Jack has his regular therapy session and then goes to the library to pick up a few books. There’s one on gardening set out on a shelf when he walks past, and he grabs it along with his history books, thinking that he might start a vegetable patch this summer with all the free time he’s going to have. He spends the rest of the day after that hanging around the house with his parents. It’s good to take a break, but it’s even better to get back into routine after that. 

Gaudy was getting Jack and Grenzy to stay with him after almost every practice before they went to the tournament, and it only takes a couple days before Gaudy is skating over after practice to give Jack the hopeful eyes again. Jack doesn’t even think about putting up a fight. 

“Get down lower,” Jack reminds Gaudy, and he waits a moment for Gaudy to do so before he drops the puck. Gaudy wins the faceoff, but his serious expression doesn’t change. He’s not losing every time anymore, but he doesn’t win every time either, and he has yet to win a faceoff during a game. 

“Again,” he demands. 

Jack checks his watch. “Four more minutes,” he warns before taking another puck out of his bucket.

By the end of the four minutes, Gaudy has won 15 out of 25 faceoffs. He still doesn’t look entirely pleased, though, even when Jack compliments him on how much he’s improved as they’re walking back to the dressing room.

“It’s against Grenzy, though,” Gaudy says. “He’s not even a forward. I mean, no offence, dude.”

“I _used_ to be a centre,” Grenzy protests, but it’s more of a tired argument than any real offence taken. 

“You’re still a lot better,” Jack says to Gaudy. He hates thinking of Gaudy putting this much time and effort into getting better and then refusing to acknowledge when he succeeds. It’s too familiar to Jack. “You’ve been working really hard.” 

Gaudy shrugs. He’s quiet for a bit as they all sit down and start taking off their skates. Jack is inspecting a fraying edge on one of his laces when Gaudy says, “Do you think we could get Chicken to stay after practice?” 

Jack looks up. “To practice with you?” he asks, more to stall than any real need of clarification. 

Gaudy nods. “He’s the best at faceoffs,” he says, voice stubborn. Jack has a feeling he’s going to get Chicken on the ice with them no matter what Jack says. It’s a good thing Jack is fairly sure that Chicken will agree without making Gaudy be his slave or something as payment; as far as Jack can tell, Chicken’s a good kid who really cares about the team. 

“You could ask him,” Jack says carefully.

“I will,” Gaudy says immediately. 

“Does that mean I don’t have to anymore?” Grenzy asks, tugging his hair out of the braid it’s usually in and looking at the elastic in annoyance. Jack hides a laugh by looking down at his feet. “Not that I’m not a great friend, but I’m still not a centre.”

Gaudy rolls his eyes. “Maybe,” he says. “Weren’t you just arguing that you used to be?” 

“Whatever,” Grenzy says. 

—

On the last Saturday in February, Jack goes into the office in the morning to get some of the paperwork that built up while they were at the tournament done. Coach Leclair and Cyrille seem to have the same idea, because they’re both there as well. It makes working a little difficult, what with Cyrille and Jack sharing a desk, but they make do. 

They’re all quiet save Coach Leclair occasionally talking on the phone. Cyrille and Jack keep accidentally bumping into each other because of the limited space, and it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s making Jack anxious anyway. He does his best to take up the least amount of room possible with limited results.

It’s nearing noon when Jack awkwardly clears his throat and says to Cyrille quietly, “Do you want to read over the newsletter?” She looks up, and he jerks his head to indicate the computer screen.

“Sure,” she says at a normal volume. Jack moves to get out of the way, but Cyrille moves in the same direction, and when Jack goes the other way, so does she. They both laugh and then proceed to do exactly the same thing again. It’s so exceedingly awkward that Jack wants to curl into a ball and not move.

“Well, I think it’s crowded enough in here,” Coach Leclair announces, having obviously been watching them. “I’m off for lunch. I’ll see you two before the game.”

“See you,” Cyrille says. Jack waves to Coach Leclair. “Wow, I didn’t realize it was time for food.”

Jack shrugs. “Yeah,” he says.

Cyrille pushes her chair backward away from Jack and the desk. “I’m feeling sushi for lunch, what about you?”

Jack had been planning to either go home or grab something from the concession—he should probably do the former, since the latter is definitely not in his diet plan, though whether or not he follows his diet plan is directly related to how relevant he thinks it is to his life. He’s currently thinking that it probably doesn’t matter if he eats some fries; he’s going to be writing newsletters for Pee-Wee hockey parents for the rest of his life anyway. 

“I don’t know,” he says to Cyrille. 

“Come with me then,” Cyrille says easily. 

“Oh, um,” Jack says, trying to think of a way to decline. He likes going out with Cyrille most of the time, but sometimes he would rather just be alone to stew in his thoughts. He gestures at the computer screen vaguely and makes what he hopes is an apologetic noise.

“Oh yeah, I’ll finish reading this first,” Cyrille says, turning back to the screen to do so.

Jack sighs. He has no idea if that was a deliberate misinterpretation or if he’s really that shit at communicating, but either way, he’s not going to try to argue. 

They end up at a sushi place not far from the arena. Cyrille picks a table in the middle of the restaurant by a dividing wall with plants growing on top, and she orders edamame for an appetizer. Jack does the same and then busies himself poking at the ice in his complimentary water with his straw.

“What do you think about the Seigneurs?” Cyrille asks. “They were good at the tournament, weren’t they?” 

Jack stops stirring his water and nods. The Seigneurs had won their first game, so they’d never been matched against the Conquérants, and they’d also made it past where the Conquérants had been knocked out, though they didn’t make it to the finals. “We’re playing them in a few weeks,” Jack points out.

“Yeah,” Cyrille says. “The boys will be raring to go at that one, don’t you think?”

Jack snorts. “That’s one way to put it,” he says. The team is actually fairly well-matched to the Seigneurs, and it’s a constant toss-up as to who will win any given game. It leads to post-game frustration more often than not, win or lose. “Imagine being up against them in the playoffs.” 

“Oh no,” Cyrille says, shaking her head, “I’d rather not, thank you.”

“Could be reality,” Jack points out.

“Nope!” Cyrille declares, picking up her water glass and taking a sip from the straw. “I will deny it until I absolutely can’t anymore.” 

Jack rolls his eyes at that. She’s grinning, clearly aware of her overdramatics, and Jack can’t help but smile back at her. 

Someone walks up next to the table then, clearing their throat, and Jack thinks it’s their server right up until he actually looks up at the teenage girl with an iPhone clutched in her hands. _Fuck_ , he thinks immediately, trying not to show his panic on his face. 

“Jack Zimmermann?” the girl asks, though she clearly knows the answer.

Jack nods anyway. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cyrille slowly putting down her glass and giving him a worried look.

“I’m a huge fan of yours,” the girl says. “You’re so good. Could I maybe, like, get a picture with you? My friends won’t believe me.”

Jack had been afraid she was going to ask that. A signature he could do in two seconds flat, but he doesn’t like his picture being taken on a good day. It is emphatically not a good day, and unfortunately that doesn’t exactly lend itself to his ability to say no, either. 

Cyrille holds out her hand. “I’ll take it,” she offers. “What’s your name?” 

“Oh, thank you,” the girl says, handing her phone to Cyrille. “I’m Rosie.” 

Jack tries for a smile and probably gets a grimace. “That’s my aunt’s name,” he offers, even though Aunt Rose would look pained if you dared call her Rosie.

“Really?” Rosie asks. “Cool! Um, do you like, want me to—”

“Just crouch a bit, you’re good,” Cyrille says, waving a hand. Rosie does so, balancing herself on the back of Jack’s chair. “Say cheese.” Cyrille grins herself, and Jack tries to remember how he was managing smiling a minute ago. “There.” She hands the phone back to Rosie, who is beaming. Jack’s glad she’s happy, at least. 

“Wow,” Rosie says, looking at her phone and then back up at Jack. “My mom loves your dad, too, says he’s what got her into hockey even if she’s actually got a head for all the stats. She never shuts up about his powerplay. Is it awesome, being his son? I mean, you look just like him, it’s crazy. Do you think you’ll ever play for the Habs? That would be _so_ cool.” 

Jack stares at her. “I, um,” he tries. “I don’t think I’m going to be in the NHL.” Rosie’s face falls, and Jack hastens to add, “Anytime soon.” 

“Oh, right, because of—”

“Sorry, Rosie, if you don’t mind,” Cyrille interrupts. She raises an intimidating eyebrow. Jack wants to cry he’s so grateful.

“Oh, sorry,” Rosie says. “I’ll let you get back to your lunch. Thank you _so_ much for the picture, really.”

“No problem,” Jack rasps out. He reaches for his water, taking a long drink, and when he puts his glass down Rosie is nowhere in sight. 

“You okay?” Cyrille asks. “She was energetic, wasn’t she?” 

Jack nods. “Thanks,” he says.

Cyrille shrugs. “No big deal,” she says. “Now help me decide whether I want the dynamite roll or the dragon roll.” 

That Jack can do. He reads the descriptions on the menu carefully, just to be sure, then says, “Dragon?”

Cyrille nods, satisfied, and closes her menu. Jack does as well, figuring he’ll just get the same thing. Their server must have been keeping a pretty good eye on them, because he comes over almost immediately to take their orders. 

When he’s gone, Cyrille immediately starts in on a new topic. “So I’ve been working with Chicken on his edge control,” she says.

Jack nods. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cyrille says. “We’ve been doing moderately hard drills one-on-one, and I think he’s definitely been improving. Do you think so?”

Jack concentrates on thinking about Chicken’s skating lately. “Yeah,” he says, “that and his explosiveness are definitely getting better. He’s still not particularly fast, though. Maybe he needs to do more off-ice leg workouts?” He abruptly feels weird for saying that about a child, but Cyrille is nodding.

“Yeah, that might help,” she says. “If he’s really serious about hockey, which I think he is, then he’ll be happy to step it up and do whatever it takes.” She pauses, then adds thoughtfully, “Agreed? You’d know more about what that consists of.”

“Chicken’s good,” Jack agrees. “If he wants it, I think he can do it.” 

“It’s a lot to deal with,” Cyrille says. “You’d know about that, too.”

Jack shrugs, avoiding eye contact. 

“Do you get that a lot?” Cyrille asks, gesturing a hand at the empty air where Rosie isn’t anymore.

“Not so much anymore unless I’m with my dad,” Jack says. “I used to. People really loved us in—um.”

He stops short, remembering that he’s not part of an us anymore. “Right,” Cyrille says, obviously filling in the blank herself. “That must be hard, having people so obsessive over you.”

Jack frowns. “Usually people say it must be awesome,” he says. 

“Sure, the concept of fame is cool,” Cyrille says. “But you didn’t look like you thought it was awesome just now.” Jack must make a face that expresses his horror at his transparency, because she quickly adds, “Not that she noticed, but I know you. There’s your default blank face and then there’s that blank mask you put on when you’re experiencing an emotion or something.” 

Jack snorts. “Experiencing an emotion?” 

Cyrille rolls her eyes. “You know.” 

Jack does know, it’s just weird to think of Cyrille knowing him that well. It’s weird to hear anyone except Julie asking him about his feelings regarding fame and actually looking like they care to hear the real answer rather than the crowdpleaser. Jack knows the latter well; he’s said it hundreds of times in his life: it’s an honour to have people care so much, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s going to work his hardest to do his best for himself and his family no matter what. He doesn’t remember when he stopped believing his best was good enough. He’s not sure he ever did.

Jack doesn’t respond for a moment, examining the top of the table intently, and he stalls long enough that their food arrives. The dragon rolls are arranged into the shape of an actual dragon, and Cyrille spends a couple minutes cooing about how cute they are and lamenting having to ruin it to eat.

“But I’m hungry, so,” she says before commencing with the ruining. Jack watches her, poking at his own dragon with his chopsticks. He’s not that hungry, anxiety fluttering around in his stomach. He makes himself take a bite anyway. 

He’s not sure Cyrille really needs or wants a response to her comment about him not liking fame, but he finds he actually wants to give her one, like maybe talking about it won’t be that bad if he’s not expected to. “I don’t think it’s awesome,” he says, staring at his dragon. “I, uh, hate it. It makes… everything worse. Or maybe it’s the problem.”

Jack chances a glance up. Cyrille is looking at him, but she doesn’t look pitying or anything. 

“Well, it’s not,” he continues, correcting himself. “I have, um… anxiety. So it’s really all in my head.” He laughs, trying to make it into a joke, but Cyrille just keeps looking at him. 

“It can’t be _all_ in your head,” she says. “People can be total assholes even if it’s unintentional. Especially when they really love something.” 

Jack shrugs. “I guess so.” 

“Well, I’m glad you’re taking a break from all that, in any case,” Cyrille declares, picking up another piece of sushi with her chopsticks. “I need you to keep doing paperwork so that I don’t have to.” She grins.

“Gladly,” Jack says, giving her a small smile back. 

Cyrille points at his plate with her free hand. “You should eat your dragon rolls.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack says, and he starts in on obeying. He’s glad Cyrille dragged him out, fan encounter aside. He feels oddly better for having had that conversation, even though he hadn’t wanted to have any conversation at all. 

—

At practice about a week later, they’ve split the boys into groups to take advantage of the full-ice practice and work on game plays. There isn’t much for Cyrille and Jack to do for that except watch while they repeat the same thing over and over, trying to get it right, and hang out with the boys waiting on the bench for their turn.

Jack is watching Monty flub another pass out on the ice when Roddy, sitting next to him, pokes him in the thigh. Jack looks at him questioningly, and Roddy gestures for Jack to come closer. He obliges, leaning closer so Roddy can whisper in his ear. “Are you and Coach Durand…” He lowers his voice even more, enough that Jack has to strain to hear. “…dating?” 

Jack leans back, surprised. “What? No,” he says. “Where did you get that idea?” 

Roddy shrugs. “My parents were talking about it. They said they saw it in the news or something,” he says.

Jack frowns. He hasn’t seen anything, but he avoids hockey media like the plague, so that’s not a surprise. He’d gotten the impression that they didn’t report on him anymore—and they shouldn’t, not when there are way more important things happening in hockey right now—but he supposes there are still gossip blogs that would. “Well, it’s just gossip,” Jack tells Roddy.

“What’s gossip?” Cyrille asks, wandering over from the other side of the bench. 

“You and Coach Z dating!” Roddy says cheerfully. Cyrille’s eyebrows reach heights on her face that Jack has never witnessed before. He wonders what the articles about them are like. They’re probably not very nice, if his past experiences are anything to go by. Cyrille is going to want to stop hanging out with him when it means shit like this gets out, he thinks, resigned. 

“They’re _what_?” Garden asks from where he’s sitting a few boys down.

“No, they’re _not_ dating,” Jonesy says, rolling his eyes. “It was false reporting.” 

“Reporting?” Cyrille asks.

“Roddy says his parents were talking about some rumour they read in the news or something,” Jack says. He wants to apologize, but he has no idea how to even word that. Cyrille doesn’t _look_ angry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not dating,” Jonesy says, “because that would be way gross.” 

“Yeah, it would,” Cyrille agrees, smirking at Jack. “Boys are super gross.”

Jack isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be offended by that or not. The boys don’t seem to have a problem with making that decision for themselves—all of them are paying attention and looking disgruntled now. Roddy gasps loudly. “Hey! We’re boys!” 

Cyrille snorts. “Take a look at yourselves and consider the smell of your dressing room,” she advises. 

The boys go tellingly silent. Cyrille waggles her eyebrows at Jack, and Jack just barely stops himself from bursting into laughter. 

“She has a good point,” Bear says glumly. They all nod solemnly. 

That’s the end of that conversation, especially since they switch groups a minute later, but Jack keeps thinking about it. He can’t shake the feeling that Cyrille is upset with him, and he keeps going over in his head different ways to apologize.

After practice, when they’re clearing the ice, Jack keeps glancing over at Cyrille, trying to think of a way to bring it up that won’t be awkward. He fails completely, and it’s not until they’re moving the last net off the ice that he blurts out, “Hey, about those news stories, I’m really sorry. It’s my fault that they even know you, that’s not fair at all.”

Cyrille rolls her eyes. “I really don’t care,” she says, putting her side of the net down and nudging it into place. 

Jack frowns as he does the same with his side. That was not the response he thought he was going to get at all. “Are you… sure?” 

“Yeah, Jack, I’m sure,” Cyrille says, shrugging. “They don’t know shit.” 

That’s true enough, but— “People still read them.” 

“People don’t know shit, either,” Cyrille says easily. “It’s no big deal.”

Jack nods hesitantly. “No big deal,” he echoes, wishing he could really feel like that’s true. “Okay.” 

—

The game that determines whether they’ll be in the playoffs falls in mid-March and is against the Patriotes. It’s not an easy game by any stretch of the imagination—the Conquérants are out there battling every single second. Jack, standing behind the bench, hasn’t had to work this hard to disguise how tense he is for months. 

Coach Leclair gave the boys a pep talk before puck drop that essentially amounted to: it’s fine if you don’t make the playoffs, but make sure you tried your very best so that you don’t have anything to be disappointed about. Jack thought someone might actually be sick—Germy always looks nauseous before games, but tonight almost all of them did.

Despite the pre-game jitters, they’re not doing badly. Rebel missed an easy save early in the first, and it’s clear that he beat himself up about it, because he’s been playing like someone lit a fire under him since then. The Patriotes have great offence, so that’s not everything, but the Conquérants’ top line alone seem determined to bring the team to the playoffs whether they like it or not. Thankfully, the rest of team is right there with them. 

They’re down 2-1 at the second intermission. The entire dressing room is practically vibrating with tension the entire time that Coach Leclair is drawing plays on the board and giving specific players tips. When he leaves the room in Jack’s charge, it stays quiet for a minute before Lion looks around and says, “I really want to make the playoffs.”

“We’re going to,” Bear says. “Right, boys?” 

Most of them nod. “Right!” Tiger says, holding his fist up for Bear to bump. Bear does, grinning. 

Their determination pays off, because the score stays the same until halfway through the third, when Grenzy sends the puck into a tangle of boys by the net and Germy manages to knock it in. It’s mostly chance, but that doesn’t stop them from cheering as hard as possible. Jack is still tense, but he’s letting himself hope now.

“Let’s go, boys,” he says encouragingly, knocking the few he can reach in the shoulders when they sit back down. “Get that win so we can clinch it.”

“Gaudette’s line, you’re up,” Coach Leclair says, and the boys switch. Jack makes sure to give Grenzy and Germy congratulatory back pats, and then he steps back to watch Gaudy line up for the faceoff with the same nervous anticipation he always has when he watches all of Gaudy’s faceoffs. With all that extra practice, any one of them could be the first one he wins in an actual game.

Gaudy’s face is determined behind his mask, and his stance is perfect. Jack tries not to hope too hard, staring intently at the referee, and then the puck drops and—

Gaudy wins it. Jack is yelling a celebratory “Yeah!” before he even really processes it, and then he immediately feels self-conscious. He shakes it off as best he can; he’s fucking _proud_ , and everyone should know it. 

They don’t score on that play, Wino turning over the puck in the neutral zone and the rest of their shift turning mostly defensive, but Jack is still beaming when they switch. “Good one, Gaudy,” he praises.

“I growled at the other guy,” Gaudy says, smiling in a way that looks more like he’s baring his teeth. It startles a laugh out of Jack. “Freaked him out.”

“Still good,” Jack says. “Up top.” He holds his hand up, and Gaudy takes off his glove to give him a high five. 

Duck scores the game winning goal with two minutes left, and the relief and joy when the game-ending buzzer goes is tangible. The boys flood out onto the ice, and Jack watches them all yell and tackle each other, a warm feeling of satisfaction settling somewhere in his chest. 

“Playoffs, baby,” Cyrille says teasingly, elbowing him in the ribs. “God, that’s gonna be one exhausting weekend.” 

“Worth it, though,” Jack says.

“Are you sure about that?” Cyrille says. “Because I’m definitely not sure.”

It takes Jack a second, but he clues in that she’s joking and rolls his eyes at her. 

—

The league playoffs are held on the first weekend of April, and the Pee-Wee AA teams start at 9 AM sharp. The Conquérants don’t play until the second game of the day, so they arrive a little later to be ready for puck drop at 10:30. 

The kids are buzzing, and honestly, Jack is feeling it, too. The stands are full of people, plus the many wandering the other public areas of the arena, and the hustle and bustle is actually, for once, comforting rather than nerve-wracking. Small scale hockey events like this one are comfortingly familiar to him, especially since this one is in his home rink. It also helps that no one is here to see him. He’s just a part of the scenery here, standing in the background of the main event. 

Their first game is against the Intrépide, and they win it 3-2, which keeps them all in high spirits. They play the Seigneurs that evening, a game no one is particularly looking forward to, but at least they have a considerable break to get food and recharge before they’re back on the ice. Jack and Cyrille chat with some parents, make sure to hammer the 5:30 meet-up time into all of the kids’ brains, and then get food and hole up at a table in the corner by the concession.

They’re silent for the entirety of their break, Cyrille studying for one of her upcoming exams and Jack reading a book of coaching tips. Halfway through, Cyrille goes and gets fries, which she wordlessly puts in the middle of the table to share. The smell of them had apparently been driving her as crazy as it had Jack; the fries are as decidedly shitty as always, but they’re good comfort food all the same. 

At twenty after four, Cyrille closes her notebook and sighs loudly. “The Seigneurs,” she says mournfully. 

Jack nods understandingly as he closes his own book. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “They’ve got this.” 

“I’m glad at least one of us is optimistic,” Cyrille says, getting up.

Jack gets up as well, and they start heading toward their designated dressing room. He knows where Cyrille’s apprehension is coming from—none of the regular season games against the Seigneurs had been a cakewalk—and he feels it a bit himself, but he’s surprised to find that he really is optimistic about this. At the very least, he’s confident that the boys are going to kill it out on the ice, win or lose, and that he had a hand in that. It’s nice. He doesn’t know when the last time he felt like the result of something didn’t have an effect on his feelings was.

“I just have a good feeling about it,” Jack tells Cyrille. 

Cyrille smiles at him. “Good,” she says. They make an arc around a crowd of people, and Jack is still looking at Cyrille when she raises her eyebrows. “That’s a whole bunch of kids early.”

Jack follows her gaze to the group of kids clustered by dressing rooms three and four. “Wow, yeah,” he agrees. The kids don’t appear to just be milling around talking to each other like usual, either. They’re looking in the same direction, and Jack frowns, trying to figure out what they’re looking at. 

A moment later, the _who_ they’re looking at straightens up, towering over the kids. Jack stops dead in his tracks and breathes, “Fuck.”

“What?” Cyrille asks, turning back. Her voice sounds very far away, even though she’s only a few steps ahead of Jack. “Is that Kent Parson?”

Jack manages a faint nod. Kent is smiling at Tiger as he signs his hockey stick, and he laughs at something Lion says, reaching out to ruffle his hair. The boys all look utterly enraptured, and Jack feels like he just lost an edge and went crashing down.

“You… weren’t expecting him,” Cyrille guesses. 

“No,” Jack says. Kent looks up and catches sight of him, and his face breaks into a wide grin. It’s more genuine than the way he’d been smiling before, and Jack hates that he knows that. He hates that he didn’t realize until this moment how much he’s missed Kent’s smile. He hates that this is how he’s finding that out. 

Kent is waving now, but Jack isn’t quite sure if he has hands anymore, let alone the ability to wave back. He watches as Kent walks straight toward him, the kids clearing a path for him. “Zimms,” Kent says when he reaches him. His voice is warm and familiar and awful, and when he goes in for a hug, Jack doesn’t move to stop him or to reciprocate. 

It lasts a few stiff, awkward moments, and then Jack remembers how to move and steps back. “Parse,” he says. He almost continues in French before remembering to switch to English. “What are you doing here?” 

Kent shrugs, rolling back on his heels and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You weren’t responding to me, so I came to you.” 

There are a million things wrong with that statement, and Jack is abruptly angry about every single one of them. “You—” he starts, then stops himself short. “Come with me,” he says instead. “Cyrille, I’ll be right back.” 

Cyrille nods, and Jack turns and heads for the office. He only glances back once to make sure Kent is following him. He checks the office to make sure it’s empty, then gestures for Kent to go inside. 

“Is this your office?” Kent asks, looking around as Jack closes the door behind them. 

“We share it,” Jack says. He’s forgotten what he was going to say, though he’s sure he knew it a second ago. Kent is looking at him expectantly. He’s bigger than the last time Jack saw him, but the way his cowlick sticks out from beneath his backward baseball cap is exactly the same. Jack’s fingers are tingling. “Don’t you have a game you should be at?” Jack asks.

“Off day,” Kent says, as if that explains everything. Maybe to him it does.

“You decided to use your day off to fly to Montréal and go to a Pee-Wee playoff tournament?” Jack says in disbelief.

Kent gives him a wounded look. “I decided to use my day off to see _you_.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe I don’t _want_ to see you?” Jack asks, the surge of anger returning. “That maybe I didn’t respond for a reason?” 

“Zimms,” Kent says, reaching a hand out toward Jack’s arm. 

Jack steps out of the way. “Don’t,” he warns. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“No,” Jack says, “you never did. You never know when enough is enough.”

“You never _tell_ me anything!” Kent protests. “You didn’t tell me when you were going off the rails, and apparently everything since then is a secret as well. I’ve been fucking worrying about you, you asshole. You don’t answer any of my calls or texts, so for all I know you could be comatose. You’re my best friend, and you won’t even talk to me.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. His hands are balled into fists at his sides. Jack stares at them instead of his face because it’s easier. “What did I do?” 

“It’s not about you,” Jack says. “I needed time.”

“Time?” Kent scoffs. “It’s been almost a year, I think that’s enough time to send a text.” 

“And space,” Jack adds, trying to get Kent to understand. “Away from everything, all the shit, I just. I couldn’t handle it anymore, all right?”

“So I’m shit now?” Kent asks. “You can’t handle me?”

Jack wants to scream. He’s not entirely sure he’s not going to. “It was _my_ problem, not yours. It still is.” 

“I don’t know, it feels a lot like my problem, Jack,” Kent says. “I was the one who had to deal with all the questions about what happened to you, with everyone asking about your apparent fucking _drug addiction_. I just kept saying you were fine, and meanwhile I had no fucking clue how you actually were because you wouldn’t answer me.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure that was fucking hard,” Jack says. “Talking to reporters after all those games you played in the NHL. I’m so sorry.”

“A lot harder than bumming around at home and playing with a bunch of children, that’s for damn sure,” Kent says. “Is this really what you want to be doing for the rest of your life?” 

“So what if it is?” Jack snaps. 

Kent’s eyes widen, and he falls silent for a moment before he says, “You’re better than this.” 

“Oh, so you’re suddenly the expert?” Jack asks, voice dripping with disdain. “Either you have no clue about me or you know everything, you can’t have it both ways.” 

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Kent says. “I know you, and even if I didn’t, anyone with eyes could see you’re too good to waste away here. The Aces took a chance on you with that fifth round pick even though you said you were taking a break from hockey. You should prove them right. These kids don’t need you, let your girlfriend handle it. You know where you belong.” 

“With you?” Jack asks. His mind catches on ‘girlfriend’ a moment later, and suddenly Kent being here makes a lot more sense. He wants to laugh, but—his hands are freezing, and they shake even when he puts them in his jacket pockets. 

“Yeah,” Kent says quietly.

Somehow Kent has managed to put all of Jack’s worst fears into words in less than thirty seconds. He’s terrified of wasting away, of never making it out of here, of being alone. He’s even more terrified of ruining everything he’s spent the past ten months trying to build from the ground up, and he can’t bear the thought of letting the kids down. 

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Jack says. “So you may as well give it up now.” 

“What, so you’re giving up on the NHL forever?” 

Jack shrugs, exhausted by this conversation and this day and this everything. “I don’t know,” he says, “but you should leave. You should never have come.” 

“I had to come,” Kent says. “I fucking missed you.” 

Jack looks away and doesn’t respond. A few long moments later, he hears the door open and then shut behind Kent. He closes his eyes, digs his fingernails into his palms inside his pockets, and then opens them again. He stares at the closed door, giving Kent a minute to get far enough away that Jack won’t see him, and then leaves the office.

He’s almost back to the dressing room when Cyrille intercepts him. “Hey,” she says, “the boys are out warming up. I was coming to find you.”

Jack nods. “Sorry, I’m here.”

“So you are.” Cyrille bites her lip, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you okay?” she asks cautiously. “I can cover for you if you want to get out of here, it’s no big deal.”

Jack shakes his head quickly. “No,” he says. He definitely doesn’t want to miss the game, it would feel too much like proving Kent right. Besides, he hasn’t missed a single game all season, he’s not about to start now. “I’m fine.” 

“Okay,” Cyrille says. She hadn’t hesitated with her acceptance of that assertion, but she still looks slightly skeptical. “Can I give you a hug?” 

Jack’s habitual response is to say no, but she asks so casually that he changes his mind and shrugs. She doesn’t move, looking expectant, so he nods as well. Cyrille has to go up on her tiptoes to hug him, and he stoops down to make it easier. She smells like watermelon gum, which is typical, and she squeezes him hard before letting go. It does a surprisingly good job of making Jack feel more settled and less like he wants crawl out of his skin.

“You looked like you needed that,” Cyrille says with a small shrug. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, but we should talk about it sometime, all right?” 

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. He’s not sure how much he really wants to tell her, but he thinks she probably deserves an explanation for all the shit she puts up with from him. At the very least, he knows she’ll listen and not judge him too harshly. “Should we—” He gestures in the direction of the ice.

Cyrille nods. “Let’s go watch our boys kick some Seigneur butt, eh?” 

Jack snorts. “Yeah, let’s go.” 

—

They do end up kicking the Seigneurs’ butts, battling for a 6-4 win, and Jack plasters on his enthusiastic face in the dressing room afterward. He stays late after they pack the kids off with their parents to help clean up and get the arena ready to do it all again tomorrow, and when he gets home it’s to a dark house, his parents already in bed.

He doesn’t sleep well, replaying his conversation with Kent in his head over and over, regretting everything he said and everything he didn’t, and by 4:30 he’s up and running outside. It’s cold, but it’s only just below freezing and the snow is almost entirely melted, so it’s not the worst weather Jack has ever run in. He used to see this hour and earlier a lot more frequently. He’s not sure the runs actually help at all, but they’re his go to when he can’t sleep.

He’s home and fully showered by 6:30, just in time to watch the sunrise out the kitchen window while he eats breakfast. His mom is up then, too, making toast and reading the newspaper. Jack considers telling her about yesterday, but she looks tired and he’s not quite sure what he’d even say, so he doesn’t. 

The Conquérants play against the Grenadiers for the first game of the day. It goes to overtime, tied 3-3, and barely a minute in, the Grenadiers sneak one past Mountie and it’s over. 

The dressing room is grim after, the boys silent. “We could still make it to the final,” Lion says after a minute. “The Intrépide might lose their game.” 

Bear nods and stands up. “And we played our best,” he says. “Good work, team.” 

He makes his way around the room giving fistbumps, starting with Mountie, who he gives an extra shoulder slap and a reminder that it wasn’t his fault. Everyone compliments Duck on his two goals and Wino on his one, and JT gets them all laughing about the murderous look on Jonesy’s face when he’d been called for a high-sticking penalty. 

Jack’s chest feels tight, watching them joke around and cheer each other up. Bear finishes his round of fistbumps with JT, just like always, and then gives him a back-slapping hug. They’re both going to be in Bantam next year, Jack suddenly remembers. The same is true for half the team. Jack lets himself hope that the Intrépide lose against the Seigneurs. He doesn’t want this to be the end. Even if they don’t win, if they could just have one more game… 

They all stick around to watch the next game. It’s tense, especially since the teams are fairly well-matched and keep trading off scoring, but in the end the score is 4-3 in favour of the Intrépide. It means they’ve won two playoff games and lost the other, tying the Conquérants, and since they were ranked third in the regular season to the Conquérants’ fourth, the Conquérants are out. 

It feels like a bitter and fitting ending to Jack, like he did something wrong to get them this far and then fail. He knows that’s not true—there wasn’t anything else he could have done—but it feels that way anyway. The kids don’t seem to be as broken up about it as they could be, either, but that just serves to make Jack feel even more stupid for caring so much.

Since they’re the team hosting the playoffs, they stay for the final game as well. It’s the Intrépide against the Grenadiers, and the Intrépide end up winning. There are individual awards as well, and Bear wins Most Sportsmanlike Player for the playoffs. The number of kids in the stands and on the ice that congratulate him when he goes down to accept it is a testament to how much he deserves it. 

By the time everything is said and done, Jack is about ready to fall asleep in the stands, and then he goes down to help clean up. He’s only been at it for maybe ten minutes when Cyrille comes over to him. She smiles and knocks her shoulder into his. “You want to go get coffee and talk about our feelings after this?”

Jack is about to protest, citing his need for sleep, but she continues on. “I’m ambushing you when you’re tired, I know, but honestly, what do you need to sleep for? We’re off tomorrow. Season’s over.” 

She’s not wrong. “You don’t have school?” Jack asks, making a weak attempt to try and sway her into rescheduling.

Cyrille shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Next exam is on Thursday, and I need to take a break from studying anyway.” 

Jack nods. “All right. Coffee, sure.” 

“I’m buying,” Cyrille says before running off to help the game timekeepers finish up with their work. Jack opens his mouth, closes it, and rolls his eyes at the empty air. 

As soon as Coach Leclair dismisses them with some fatherly pats on the shoulder and assertions that he couldn’t have done it without them, Jack and Cyrille head out to the parking lot. “Tims?” Cyrille asks. 

Jack shrugs and nods. “Not the closest one, though.”

“No,” Cyrille agrees. “The one in the other direction? Extra ten minutes?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says. 

“Okay,” Cyrille says, flashing him a smile. “Meet you there.” 

The Tim Hortons isn’t empty in the late evening by any means, but it’s not nearly as busy as the one closest to the arena would be, either. Jack beats Cyrille there and orders himself a double double to sit in the corner by the window with. When Cyrille shows up, she waves to acknowledge that she saw him and then goes to order herself. A few minutes later, she sits down with a paper cup and two small plates with donuts perched on top.

“This one is for you,” she says, pushing the one with rainbow sprinkles toward Jack. “Don’t argue.”

“Not arguing,” Jack mumbles, turning the plate a bit and then leaving it. He’ll eat it in a few minutes.

Cyrille peels the lid off the top of her cup and licks whipped cream off it. Jack stares blankly in her direction and contemplates putting his head down on the table and having a nap. Cyrille takes a sip from her drink and then puts it and the lid down on the table, eyeing Jack speculatively. “Sleep well last night?” she asks.

Jack shakes his head. “Not so much.”

“Mmmm,” Cyrille acknowledges. “You looked—well. Pretty fucked up when you saw Parson.” 

Jack looks out the window. It’s dark outside, and he can’t see much but his reflection. He looks down at the table instead. 

“Rude of him to show up at your place of work without warning,” Cyrille says, tone biting. Jack looks up at her, slightly surprised. He’d been thinking she would ask him what he’d done wrong. It would be a fair question. 

“I didn’t give him much choice,” Jack says. 

“I don’t believe that,” Cyrille says. “But feel free to try and convince me.” 

Jack sighs, trying to figure out where to even start. He’s kept everything between him and Kent blocked up for so long; he told Julie about it, way back in his first sessions, and he told a more abridged version to his parents. Since then he’s been trying so hard not to think about it that he doesn’t even remember how he feels anymore. 

“I’ve been ignoring him,” he says. “Since—the draft. We were… close before that, and I just.” He stops, looking down at the top of his coffee cup.

“You must have had a reason,” Cyrille says.

Jack nods slightly. “I didn’t overdose on cocaine,” he says suddenly, realizing that was where he probably should have started.

Cyrille snorts. “Sorry,” she says quickly, “but yeah, dude, I’d figured that one out.”

“It was actually, um. It was my anxiety meds,” he admits, “and a lot of alcohol.” 

Cyrille nods and takes a sip of her drink instead of saying anything. 

“I was fucked up,” Jack continues, “for a long time. I never told anyone, including Kent, because I was ashamed of it. I thought if everyone else could deal, I should be able to. I’d had more experience, you know?” 

“No one was under as much scrutiny as you, though,” Cyrille says.

Jack shrugs. “Still,” he says. He’s more aware now of how his mental illness makes how he deals with things different from others, and God knows he’s been reminded a thousand times that it doesn’t make him weak, but that’s easier to say than believe. He takes a drink of his coffee, trying to figure out how to move on to the actual Kent-related part of this. 

It was difficult, growing up in locker room culture and slowly realizing he didn’t fit the straight-dude mould. It’s not the kind of thing he could immediately accept as true or even, eventually, as something other people would accept about him. Things like having an aunt in a happy relationship with her wife were drowned out by the terror and anxiety of there being one more thing he wasn’t doing right. 

There’s also the knowledge that there isn’t a single professional hockey player who’s publicly anything other than straight. It still scares Jack, the thought of anyone finding out, but Cyrille is patiently picking apart the pieces of her donut, and Jack trusts her.

“Kent and I, we were…” he trails off. He doesn’t want to say dating, because he doesn’t think anything they did ever really fit that definition. There isn’t really a better way to say it, though, so he relents. “Dating. Except we didn’t really talk about it.”

Cyrille swallows the mouthful of donut she had and nods. “So, like, not dating.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, glad she gets it. “We couldn’t, not with… everything.” 

“Sucks,” Cyrille says. “So why were you ignoring him?” 

That’s almost easier to answer. “He reminds me of everything, I guess,” Jack says. “We spent all of our time together. He was at every party, we were roommates, we did all our media together—he watched me lie about how I was coping and backed me up. Rightly so, because it’s not like he knew I was any different than any of the other guys who liked to party. Nobody knew that.”

“Does he know now?” Cyrille asks. 

Jack winces. “I think so,” he says. “He called my parents when I was in rehab and they told him why because they thought he knew about the meds.” 

Cyrille frowns. “If he knows it was mostly the pressure that was the problem… it stills seems selfish to me that he’d just show up.”

Jack shrugs and doesn’t say anything. It’s exactly what his reaction had been, but after a day of constantly thinking about it, he’s questioning himself. 

“Not responding is a response, and he should have figured out that he wouldn’t be welcome,” Cyrille continues. “Especially at a time when he could have guessed that you’d be stressed already.” 

Jack nods, marvelling at how defensive Cyrille sounds. 

“What did he even have to say that he thought was so important?” 

“Um,” Jack says, “he was worried. He wanted to know what he’d done wrong? I told him it wasn’t him, but I… I don’t think he was listening. He got angry and said that I belonged in the NHL with him, not here wasting my life coaching the kids.”

“He _what_?” Cyrille says, much louder than the hushed conversation they’ve been having. Jack glances around, but no one is even looking in their direction. Cyrille lowers her voice again, but it’s still laced with anger. “Sorry, but that’s fucked up. You’re not wasting anything.” 

Jack shrugs. “Thanks.”

“You’re not,” Cyrille repeats. “And if you ever need reminding, just call me. Kent Parson doesn’t know anything about what you’ve done for this team.” 

It’s a good point, one that Jack is going to have to keep reminding himself of. “Thank you,” he says again. 

Cyrille nods. “No problem,” she says. “We’re bros. Bros let each other rant about their problems and buy each other donuts.” She looks pointedly at the rainbow sprinkle donut that Jack hasn’t touched.

Jack rolls his eyes and picks up the donut. “Anything you want to tell me about?” he asks. 

“In a bit, probably,” Cyrille says. “Right now I want to watch you eat that donut and stew in my anger.”

“All right,” Jack says. He takes a bite of the donut. It’s really pretty good. 

—

Jack gets home late enough that even though he does manage to get some solid sleep, he’s still tired when it’s time for his therapy appointment. Julie notices right away, of course, and asks expectantly how his weekend went. Jack wants to take a nap on the couch even more than usual, but he sucks it up and tells her in the most detail he can. He’s been planning what to say practically since it happened, so it’s a lot of detail. 

Julie listens patiently, nodding along and prompting him to share more, and when he’s done she waits a moment to make sure he doesn’t have anymore to say, then asks, “So in a word or two, what Kent did made you feel…”

“Upset,” Jack says. “Angry. Confused, I guess. Sorry, that’s more than two.”

“That’s all right,” Julie reassures him. “Why do you think you felt like that?” 

Jack bites the inside of his lip and thinks about what Cyrille said. “I think it was selfish of him,” he says carefully. He’s still not quite sure he believes it, but he wants to. “He was inconsiderate… and it didn’t help that he didn’t listen to what I was saying. I think maybe I would have understood if he at least listened to me.”

Julie nods. “You know, it wasn’t so long ago that you wouldn’t have said a bad word against him. It’s good to realize that not everything rests on your shoulders alone.”

“I guess so,” Jack says. “I’m trying, anyway.” 

“That’s all you can do,” Julie says with a smile. “Do you think you’ll try to talk to Kent again?”

Jack shakes his head immediately, then shrugs. “Not right away?” The idea of never speaking to Kent again isn’t exactly appealing, but neither is the thought of talking to him.

“That’s fair,” Julie says. “I think some time to cool down after what sounds like a heated fight is a good idea.”

Jack frowns slightly. “But I should talk to him eventually?” he fills in. 

Julie shrugs. “That’s up to you. You said he told you he misses you—do you feel the same?”

Jack wants to say no, but it doesn’t feel right. There are a lot of things he misses about Kent, and he’s not sure how many of them are even real. Kent was an escape and a reminder all at once, and Jack doesn’t need either of those things anymore. He shrugs. 

“From what you’ve said, I think that at the very least you could benefit from some closure,” Julie says. “Or from talking to someone who knew you at your worst and appears to still want to be your friend.”

Jack is startled by that. “You think he wants to be my friend?” 

Julie smiles softly. “He flew across the country just to see you,” she points out. “I think he definitely wants to be in your life in some way.” 

It seems obvious when she puts it like that, but Jack’s spent so long convincing himself that he fucked up their entire relationship that he can’t quite process it. For a moment he’s thrilled that he’s wrong, happy that Kent still cares, and then that’s smothered by confusion as to why he would. Jack’s not sure he even actually wants him to. He doesn’t know how to have Kent in his life. They were never just friends, and Jack has no idea how they would even begin to try to be. It seems ridiculous that Kent wouldn’t realize that. 

“I don’t—” he starts, and then he cuts himself off. “That’d be nice,” he says instead. It doesn’t quite sound sincere even to his own ears. 

Julie hums thoughtfully. “Examine your feelings on this for your homework.” 

Jack sighs and nods. He already feels pretty in touch with his feelings on the subject, but he’ll work on coming up with something Julie wants to hear. 

—

The season is over and the kids don’t have to report to practices anymore, but the arena isn’t closed for another month, and there’s always more paperwork to do to finish up this year and get started on the next. Jack tries not to think of what happens when the arena really _does_ close for the summer and spends most of the week holed up in the office.

Coach Leclair is almost always there, and Cyrille comes in a few times as well. On Thursday afternoon, Jack is alone, writing his portion of a season-end performance review for Bergey when Cyrille wanders in and makes a beeline for the desk where Jack is sitting. 

“Here,” she says, holding something out to Jack. “I made this for you.”

Jack takes it and realizes that it’s a CD—the kind you can burn your own songs onto. There are red heart stickers surrounding the tracklist written in Cyrille’s familiar scrawl. “What’s this?” 

“It’s an independence mix,” Cyrille says as if it’s obvious. It does, in fact, say “Independent Lady” at the top, but Jack thought that was one of the songs. Maybe it is. “I want you to listen to it daily.”

“An… independence mix?” Jack asks. 

Cyrille nods. “Full of very important songs for you,” she says seriously. “As a reminder that you’re a badass who doesn’t need a man.”

Jack stares at her, unsure if she’s actually serious. She certainly looks like she is. Jack scans the tracklist, then looks back up at her. “Thank you?” he says cautiously. 

“You’re welcome,” Cyrille says. There’s definitely a smile tugging at the corner of her lips now. Jack raises his eyebrow. “I want you to really connect to the music. Feel it in your bones, the whole nine yards.”

Jack nods, playing along. “I will,” he says. “I won’t let you down.” 

“Good.” Cyrille nods emphatically. She looks like she might start cracking up at any moment. “What are you?” 

“Uh… independent?” Jack hazards.

“What don’t you need?” 

“A man,” Jack says, more sure this time. 

“Right,” Cyrille says appreciatively, sitting down in the chair next to him. Her expression is serious again. “And if at any point during the offseason you listen to the mix and feel like you’re not independent and you do need a man, I want you to call me and I’ll remind you.”

Jack looks at the CD again, recognizing it as the gesture it is. It seems unbelievable that Cyrille would be paying that much attention, but she must have picked up on his worry and figured out just how to reassure him. Jack swallows the emotion stuck in his throat and nods. “Okay, I will.”

“Good,” Cyrille says. She punches Jack in the shoulder and leans in to look at the computer screen, essentially declaring that thread of conversation over. Jack puts the CD in his bag to take home and starts chatting about performance reviews with her.

—

The whole team gets together for a party to close out the season a week after playoffs. Jack wakes up the morning of with a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. He knows, logically, that his older kids aren’t going off to war, only aging up to Bantam, but he’s going to miss them enough that it feels monumental anyway. 

They’ve booked the back room of a local pizza place for the party, and even though Jack gets there early, Coach Leclair and Cyrille have already arrived. 

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Cyrille says when she sees him. “Help me hang up this sign.”

In the time it takes them to hang up the sign—which says ‘Thanks for a great season, Conquérants!’ and has frayed edges that are telling of how many times it’s been used before—a few of the families start to arrive. Garden and his mother are the first, which is typical of Astrid as the most engaged parent Jack has ever personally witnessed, and then Tiger and his parents. Coach Leclair immediately starts chatting with them, Cyrille goes off to the kitchen to make sure they really do know what time the actual pizza needs to appear, and Jack stands awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He’s pretending to be occupied by the refreshments table when really all he’s doing is lining up the bottles of pop in a straighter line when Garden’s mother comes up to him and puts a hand on his arm. Jack jumps and then pretends he didn’t. “Uh, hi, Mrs. Desjardins,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks, Jack,” Astrid says, moving her hand away and smiling. “I wanted to know if you could do me a favour.” 

Jack shrugs. “What’s that?” 

“I worked with a bunch of the parents to make Coach Leclair a scrapbook with the kids’ pictures and signatures—I’m told they did a similar thing last year, so he probably won’t be surprised, but would you mind being the one to announce it and give it to him? Garden will go up with you, but he gets a bit shy about crowds.” 

Jack isn’t too fond of crowds either, even ones made up of the kids and their families, but Astrid looks too hopeful and he’s too awkward to do anything but nod. “I can do that,” he says. He tells himself it’ll be worth it to save Garden from being traumatized by public speaking.

“Great!” Astrid says, pulling a medium-sized photo album out of her oversized purse. “Here. Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” Jack says, taking the photo album. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do with it until it’s time to give it to Coach Leclair, but Astrid doesn’t look inclined to help him, as she’s already wandering away. Jack finds a chair at a table in the back corner to claim for his own, puts it underneath there, and hopes no one touches it. 

Thankfully, Jack doesn’t actually have to do much at this party. He greets people as they come in and talks to some of the parents—mostly about the weather and their kids, both topics Jack is confident in—and eventually everyone has arrived. 

They all end up occupied talking to friends, leaving Jack standing awkwardly again, and he drifts back over to the refreshments table. At some point it gained a vegetable tray, so he makes himself a plate of that. He’s standing off to the side, picking at his veggies, when Bear comes up to him. 

“Coach Z,” Bear says, looking at Jack seriously. Jack is reminded of his very first day, when Bear had looked at him with an intensity not that much different than this. There’s a different vibe to it, though, now that Jack knows him—and his wild explosion of hair not being hidden by his helmet certainly helps as well.

“What’s up?” Jack asks, trying to sound unaffected.

“I need you to promise me something,” Bear says. 

“Sure,” Jack agrees immediately.

“You have to take care of my little brother next year,” Bear says. “His name’s Prosper.” 

Jack thinks that if Prosper is anything like Bear, he’s not going to need much help. “Of course,” Jack says. 

Bear gives him a wary look. “You promise?” 

“I promise,” Jack says. “If he makes the AA team, I’ll watch out for him.”

Bear snorts and rolls his eyes. “Of course he’ll make AA,” he says. He holds out a fist, pinky finger extended, and Jack schools his face into seriousness before copying and sealing his promise with a pinky swear. Bear seems satisfied, flashing Jack a wide grin before wandering back over to the group he’s been talking to.

The pizza arrives right around then, so Jack takes a few slices and retreats to his chair. Cyrille joins him a few minutes later with her own pizza, and then their table is suddenly populated with a bunch of kids.

“Here,” Jonesy says as he sits down next to Jack, “this is for you.” He puts an envelope on the table next to Jack. 

Jack picks it up and turns it over. “What for?” he asks.

Jonesy shrugs. “It’s a thank you card,” he says. “I have one for Coach Durand, too.” He tries to flick the card across the table to her, but it spins and only makes it halfway. Wino rolls his eyes and stands so he can reach it and give it to Cyrille.

“Thanks, Jonesy,” Cyrille says, tucking the envelope underneath the edge of her plate. 

“Thanks,” Jack echoes quickly. He remembers, now, writing the same kind of cards when he was younger, but for some reason he hadn’t really been expecting to get any himself. 

“Whatever,” Jonesy says around a mouthful of pizza. Jack shakes his head fondly. 

By the time the pizza-eating portion of the afternoon is coming to an end, Jack has amassed a small stack of envelopes. Cyrille leans toward him as Coach Leclair is getting up to make his speech and whispers, “I hope there’s at least one Tims giftcard in these, because my iced capp problem is getting out of hand in the face of finals.”

Jack snorts a laugh. “If there are, you can have mine, too,” he whispers back. Cyrille grins at him. 

“All right, folks,” Coach Leclair says to get everyone’s attention. He waits for the chatter to die down, then continues. “Thanks for coming out. It’s good to see you all. We had a great season, and we couldn’t have done it without all of you. I would say I’m going to keep this brief, but all of the boys are too great for that to actually happen, so!” 

He turns on the projector and the beginning of the slideshow of pictures from in the dressing room and on the ice that Cyrille had made comes up. Coach Leclair talks along with it, pointing out how well they did in various games and how each member of the team stepped up to the plate when it was necessary. It’s a good presentation, one Jack knows Cyrille worked hard to help create, and he elbows her appreciatively in the ribs. She smiles and elbows him back. 

The order of the kids in the slideshow is randomly shuffled, but Chicken is deliberately at the end. When his slide comes up, everyone laughs at the picture in the middle, which is one of him on the bus after a game, hair a mess and sticking his tongue out at the camera. 

Coach Leclair chuckles along with everyone. “Ah yes, Sebastien,” he says, “what would we do without his charm?” 

“Be bored!” Chicken yells from his table, making everyone crack up again. 

“True,” Coach Leclair says. “But in all honesty, as a newcomer to the team, he’s really settled into a leadership role both on and off the ice. He’s always working hard, but he does so with a smile and a laugh. Our current captain, Theo, is moving up to Bantam next year, so we had the boys vote on his replacement, and Sebastien, you’re it. Congratulations.”

The room erupts in applause and whooping cheers from the boys. Jack can’t quite see Chicken around all the people, but the glimpse he gets is of Chicken’s bright red face. A moment later, he bounds up to the front of room next to Coach Leclair. “I just wanna say that I’m really happy about this,” he says, his voice watery. He bounces on his toes slightly. “Even though I’m kind of crying, but that’s because I just realized that half of you are leaving us.” He makes a disgusted face at that, as if it’s a personal affront. ”And, like, we’re not going to have the ‘Lion, Tiger, and Bear, oh my’ line anymore.” He sniffs loudly, then continues on. “But we’re gonna kick _butt_ next year and win the whole thing, and then all of you can have a day with the cup. Even though you left. And, uh, thank you.”

He goes back to his seat to another round of applause. “Well, I don’t think our league trophy works like that, but it’s a nice sentiment,” Coach Leclair says. 

“I’ll _make_ it work!” Chicken declares. Jack snorts; he loves that kid. 

“Okay,” Coach Leclair says. “Anyway, that’s it from me. Thank you all again for helping us have such a great year, and we’ll see all of you around the arena.” 

Everyone claps again, and Jack abruptly realizes that now is when he’s supposed to give Coach Leclair the scrapbook. He nearly knocks his chair over as he’s getting up, and Cyrille raises an eyebrow at him. He makes a face at her and heads for where Coach Leclair is. He made sure to note where Garden is sitting with his family so that he could easily swing by that table and hand over the scrapbook, and he manages to do so without knocking anything else over.

“Don’t sit down yet,” Jack says to Coach Leclair. 

“What’s this?” Coach Leclair asks, though the small smile he’s already sporting makes Jack think he’s got some idea. 

“The boys all wanted to show, um, their appreciation for you,” Jack says, “so they got together and made this for you.” He gestures for Garden to hand over the scrapbook. “Thanks for always working hard and looking out for everyone. You always go that extra mile.” 

He pauses, a bit overcome with how true it is—Coach Leclair going the extra mile is exactly why the past year of Jack’s life wasn’t even a quarter as awful as it could have been. He clears his throat and finishes. “You, uh, said you can’t do it without everyone, but there’s no way anyone could do anything without you.”

Coach Leclair holds the scrapbook with one hand and reaches the other out to shake hands with Jack. “Thank you,” he says. Jack nods and shrugs. He doesn’t think his two second speech he made up while eating pizza is much of anything. “I’m glad to help. We’re all doing what we can, and doing it together is what makes this team so great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Listen to the independent lady mix Cyrille makes Jack](http://8tracks.com/ungilded/independent-lady) (courtesy of the lovely Lily).


	5. Chapter 5

**Missed (10) Call(s) from Kent Parson**   
04-12-10

**(8) New Voice Message(s)**   
11:02 PM | 04-12-10

**Missed (13) Call(s) from Kent Parson**   
04-13-10

**(20) New Voice Message(s)**   
8:06 PM | 04-13-10

**You have no more voice message storage space.**   
8:06 PM | 04-13-10

**Missed a Call from Kent Parson**   
9:03 PM | 04-13-10

**Missed a Call from Kent Parson**   
9:03 PM | 04-13-10

—

The NHL regular season ends. Jack isn’t following hockey at all, but if he hadn’t known that from years of previous experience as a hockey fan, he would have figured out that at least the Aces were done playing solely based on how often ‘Kent Parson’ shows up on his caller ID. 

The first time Kent calls is the Monday after the end-of-season party. It’s late enough in the afternoon that Jack would usually be at work, and he feels off-balance, unsure what he’s supposed to be doing now that he doesn’t have to be. He can’t concentrate, either on TV or his book, and when his phone vibrates on the coffee table, he reaches for it with a sense of relief, hoping someone wants him to do something.

He almost answers without looking, and he’s immediately glad for the cursory glance he does give, because that’s Kent’s name on the tiny screen, looking larger than life. He holds the phone in his hand, frozen, until it finally stops ringing. A minute later, it vibrates once, and when Jack flips it open, there’s a voice message notification.

Jack flips his phone shut again and puts it back on the coffee table in the living room, leaving it there and going to his bedroom. He closes the door, sits down on the edge of his bed, and stares at the floor. He has this terrible urge to call Kent back, because what if something important happened? At the very least he could listen to the voicemail. Just to see.

He shakes his head and reaches over to his CD alarm clock, turning it on. The mix Cyrille made him starts playing from the middle of track four, and Jack lies down on his bed and tries to become the music. He considers calling Cyrille, but she’s deep into final exam hell now, and Jack doesn’t want to disturb her.

Locking himself in his room and listening to the mix on repeat works for the rest of the day. He rescues his phone from the living room eventually, plugging it in to charge on his desk and setting it to silent when he goes to bed. He checks it in the morning and again when he comes in from the garden for lunch, and halfway through the afternoon he gives in and checks the internet to make sure Kent is fine. The internet says he is. There’s a thumbnail for a video interview, but Jack closes the window instead of clicking it. 

When Jack checks his phone before going to bed, the missed calls from Kent stretch back farther than he cares to look in his call history. His voicemail inbox is apparently full. He falls asleep feeling sick to his stomach.

On Wednesday his phone is blessedly quiet for a long time, even when he takes it off silent. It’s almost unnerving in its own right, and Jack feels stupid about it. Kent’s not dead because he stopped calling, he probably just caught a clue and got over himself. Jack goes shopping for groceries with his mother, helps her make supper, and tries not to think about it. 

Jack is sitting on his bed reading when his phone rings for the first time all day. He checks to see, and yep—it’s Kent. He leaves it, assuming Kent is just back to his periodic calls, but as soon as it stops ringing it starts again. He eyes it warily but doesn’t touch it. Sometimes Kent calls more than once in a row, like he thinks it will sway Jack.

It never has before, so the fact that he calls _again_ is surprising. Jack picks the phone up, then puts it back down. He starts humming track twelve of the mix under his breath. Kent calls again, and this time when his phone stops, Jack sets it to silent. He can still see the screen lighting up, though.

He gets to the end of the chapter he’s reading before he can’t take it anymore. He has no idea what the last five pages he read even said; he’s too preoccupied thinking about all the things that could possibly be wrong with Kent. 

Jack closes the book and picks up his phone. For a moment he thinks he’s missed Kent entirely and has weirdly mixed feelings about it, but the next it lights up with a new phone call again. He answers before he can change his mind again. “Kent?” 

There’s silence for a moment, and then Kent’s voice, surprised, saying, “Jack?”

“Are you okay?” Jack asks. He fists his hand in his comforter, then forces himself to stop. His shoulders are tense and he can’t make himself relax them. 

“Shit, yeah, I’m fine,” Kent says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jack says. Awkward silence reigns. He regrets this so much, but he also—he can hear Kent breathing on the other end of the line. “Did you…“ He clears his throat. “Did you need something?” 

“Did you listen to my messages?” Kent asks.

“No,” Jack says. He wonders if he should have. They’re still there; he still could. He’s not sure he wants to. 

Kent huffs. “If you had you’d know that I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says. Jack cringes at how defensive he sounds.

“Okay,” Jack says. He supposes Kent can’t use the internet to find that out. “I’m fine.” 

“Good,” Kent says.

“Good,” Jack echoes. He closes his eyes. “Anything else?” 

He can hear Kent clear his throat. “I, uh. I guess not.”

“Okay, well. I’m going to go then.”

Jack waits a moment to pull the phone away from his ear, and he’s about to hit the end button when he hears a distant, breathy, “Wait!”

“What?” 

“I miss you.”

Jack’s heart catches in his throat. He’s gripping his phone so hard he thinks he might crack the plastic. He can’t speak for a few moments that stretch into eons, and then he says, “I’m glad you’re fine,” all in a rush before snapping the phone shut.

He tosses it onto the floor and watches it slide halfway across his room before lying down and shoving his pillow over his head. If his phone rings again, he doesn’t want to hear it. He can’t feel his fingers, and the space inside his chest feels cavernous. He can’t stop replaying _I miss you_ in his head. He wonders if Kent said that on any of the voice messages, if Jack could listen to him say it over and over again and let the bone-deep guilt he carries around come simmering to the surface.

He falls asleep still thinking about it, the pillow still over his head.

—

A couple weeks later, Cyrille finally emerges from the depths of what Jack understands to be a truly grueling period of time for university students. By contrast, Jack spends those weeks doing a whole lot of nothing much: just working out, gardening, and reading. He’s sitting down to rewatch one of his favourite documentaries when Cyrille calls him, and Jack almost doesn’t pick up because he thinks it’s Kent again. 

It turns out that one conversation wasn’t enough for Kent—Jack’s not sure what his endgame is here, but he calls more and more frequently as time passes and Jack doesn’t answer. If Jack answers and has an awkward, mostly silent conversation that never really differs in content from all the rest of their conversations, Kent calls occasionally instead of relentlessly. It’s weird and unsettling, and Jack tries not to think about it. Julie isn’t pleased with his refusal to express any emotion about it in their sessions, but he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, much less how to say it aloud.

Cyrille’s voice is bright and excited on the other end of the line. “I’m free!” she declares. “Four whole months of freedom!”

“Congratulations,” Jack says, smiling into the phone. Cyrille’s happiness is catching. 

“Thank you,” Cyrille says, pleased. “What have you been up to?”

Jack shrugs even though Cyrille can’t see him. “Nothing much. Hey, do you want to, uh… do something to celebrate?”

“Well, I already got drunk, so the novelty of that is gone anyway,” Cyrille says. Jack tenses slightly, unsure how to acknowledge that or even if he should, but Cyrille is barreling on before he would have had a chance. “What are you thinking? Food?” 

“Lunch?” Jack suggests.

“Sure!” Cyrille says. “When are you free?” 

“Any time,” Jack says. Then he adds, hopefully, “Tomorrow?” 

“Yeah,” Cyrille agrees immediately, “tomorrow sounds good. Come pick me up around noon? I’m too lazy to drive.” 

“Sure,” Jack agrees. “No problem.”

“Okay! See you then,” Cyrille says. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Jack echoes. He hangs up, and he’s about to press play on his DVD when his phone rings again. He looks, thinking maybe Cyrille is calling again—but it’s Kent. Jack sighs. Of course it is. According to their new standards, it’s been awhile since they talked.

Jack doesn’t even feel guilty for putting his phone on silent and not looking at it for the rest of the day. He might later—he mostly doesn’t worry that something has happened to Kent anymore, but it’s still only _mostly_ —but right now Kent can deal. Besides, he’s still trying to be the independent lady from the mix Cyrille made him, and she would definitely not pick up the phone. 

—

Jack’s early to pick Cyrille up, but she’s waiting for him outside anyway. “Hiya,” she says as she gets into the car. “It’s such a nice day!” 

She’s not wrong; it’s sunny and the air smells like the beginnings of spring. “Nice,” Jack agrees. “Bet you’re glad to get out and enjoy it instead of being trapped inside, huh?”

Cyrille groans. “God, am I ever,” she says. “So, where are we going for lunch? I’m, like, super hungry.”

“Sandwiches?” Jack says. He’s already driving, heading for the sandwich place they’ve been to a couple times before.

“Ooh, yeah, I could murder a sandwich,” Cyrille says happily. Jack glances over to flash her a smile.

They get there in the middle of the lunch rush, but standing in line for a while doesn’t bother either of them. Cyrille chatters away about how hard her finals had been, launching into a story about how one of her friends had been so tired and out of it that he’d decided building a fort to sleep in out of books in the library was a good idea. She only pauses to order, and by the time they’re sitting down, she’s concluding with, “And they let him stay for another hour because he promised to do some shelving for them.”

“Wow,” Jack says. 

“Wild, right?” Cyrille says. “Ooh, hey, did you hear that Molly’s decided to drop hockey?” 

Jack nearly chokes on the bite of sandwich in his mouth. He carefully finishes chewing and swallows before saying, “What?” 

“Yeah, apparently he wants to focus on basketball next season?” She shrugs. 

“Oh,” Jack says. It’s not like it makes a big difference to him—Molly would’ve been in Bantam if he’d continued—but it’s strange to think about. As much as he tries, it’s hard to separate the boys from hockey in his head. “That’s cool. Good for him.”

Cyrille nods. “Yeah,” she agrees. “So, what’ve you been up to?” 

Jack thinks about telling her about the phone calls with Kent, but he shrugs instead. “Not a whole lot,” he says. “Keeping it low key. I keep being crushed at pool by my dad, so I’ve got to work on that.”

Cyrille snickers and opens her mouth to respond just as Jack’s phone starts ringing in his pocket. His heart sinks as he fumbles for it, and when he looks at the display, it just confirms what he already knew. He uses the volume buttons to turn it to vibrate and holds it in one hand, gesturing with the other for Cyrille to go on. 

She doesn’t, though, just gives him a puzzled look. “You can answer if you want.” 

Jack shakes his head. “No, it’s not important.” His phone stops vibrating in his hand and he puts it down on the table top. 

Cyrille looks disbelieving. “Who calls you that isn’t important?” 

“Hey,” Jack says, “I get phone calls.” 

“Not unimportant ones,” Cyrille says. “I know you.”

Jack sighs. She’s not wrong in the slightest, and he knows she’s not going to give this up easily. Jack is too tired of it all to bother continuing to refuse to tell her. “It was Kent,” he admits. 

Cyrille raises her eyebrows. “Does he call you often?” 

Jack winces. “Yes? If I answer and talk for a minute, he stops calling as much,” he says, defensive. 

“He _what_?” Cyrille’s eyes are wide now. “What the hell, he calls you so much you feel compelled to answer to get him to stop? That’s fucked up.”

Jack shrugs, then nods when Cyrille gives him a look. “I guess.” 

“It is,” Cyrille insists. Jack’s phone starts vibrating on the table, and Cyrille grabs it. “Is this him again? Oh my God, it is.” 

“What are you—” Jack starts, but she’s answered the call before he can even finish the thought.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Cyrille says into the phone. Jack can’t hear the response, but he imagines it’s pretty confused. “Doesn’t matter. Leave Jack alone, he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to talk to you.” 

Cyrille listens for a moment, then snorts. “Yeah, sure, because you didn’t force his hand at all.” Jack wishes desperately that he could hear anything Kent is saying at all, but he’s forced to stare across the table and try to judge what it is from Cyrille’s expression. “So what?” is her next response. “Even if I were, it’s none of your goddamn business.” 

Cyrille rolls her eyes at Jack, her face the picture of _‘can you believe this guy?’_ Jack makes a face, wishing she would just hang up. He knows the kind of shit Kent can say when he’s angry, and Cyrille doesn’t deserve to hear any of it. “Fuck off,” Cyrille says. “You need help, dude, and I don’t mean that as an insult. You genuinely need a therapist. Find one and deal with your issues.” 

Jack cringes. Cyrille’s expression is entirely stone-faced now. “Yeah, nice talking to you, too. Don’t call him again,” she says, and then she finally, finally hangs up. “Unbelievable.” 

“What did he say?” Jack asks. 

“Nothing important,” Cyrille says. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with him for so long.”

Jack frowns. He definitely thinks Kent has had a tougher time having to deal with Jack, even if he doesn’t do the best job of it. “He’s not usually that bad,” he says.

Cyrille doesn’t look like she believes that, but she doesn’t try to argue, either. “If he calls again, let me know,” she says instead. “And don’t pick up.”

Jack looks away and nods. It’s a bit embarrassing to be coddled like this, but how completely grateful he is that Cyrille is willing to go to bat for him outweighs that by a lot. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve her apparently unconditional loyalty, but there’s no question that he appreciates it. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

“No problem,” Cyrille says. 

—

Kent doesn’t call again, and Jack does his best not to think about him. The days slowly get warmer and warmer, and Jack spends a lot of time outside. The sun is supposed to be good for him, and he figures it’s better than moping around inside, but it doesn’t have the magic emotional healing powers that he wants it to. He supposes those are unreasonable expectations anyway. It’s just the sun. It doesn’t owe him anything. 

He manages to keep himself busy, though, and it’s nearly mid-June when his mom reminds him that his aunts and their kids are going to be visiting for a day. “So start thinking of what we can do to entertain them while they’re here,” she says, and Jack nods and does a Google search the next time he’s on his computer.

Rose and Daisy arrive in the early evening, exhausted from driving all day, with very tired semblances of children in tow. Hannah enthusiastically greets Jack and his parents, giving them all hugs, and then insists she doesn’t need to get ready to sleep in a way that gives away just how much she really does. Bo has no such qualms; he stares at them all grumpily and asks if he can go to bed. 

“Bed time for sure,” Rose says. Her mom voice is remarkably similar to Alicia’s. It’s not surprising, but Jack notices it every time. “No arguments.”

“We’re going to have a fun day tomorrow,” Bob adds. “Right, Jack?”

Jack nods. “The zoo,” he says. 

Hannah’s eyes widen. “Okay! I’m going to bed right now!” 

The adults all suppress laughter and exchange amused glances at that. “You know the way to your rooms,” Alicia says, gesturing in their general direction. Hannah goes running off, Bo trailing after her.

“I’ll go get the rest of our stuff from the car,” Daisy says.

They don’t stay up much longer than the kids, though Jack can hear Alicia and Rose laughing about something in the kitchen after they’ve all ostensibly parted ways for bed, and everyone gets up bright and early, ready for what Jack predicts is going to be a long day.

The place he picked for them to go is called the Biodome—it’s essentially an indoor zoo, separated into four different climate areas, and it had a lot of kid-friendly things when Jack looked at their website. Judging by how excited Hannah had been the night before, Jack’s pretty sure he made a good choice. 

“Are there going to be bunnies?” Hannah asks as they’re walking into the Biodome. “I want to see bunnies.”

“Ask Jack if there are bunnies,” Rose says, and Hannah turns to stare at Jack with wide eyes.

“Uh,” Jack says, “I don’t know. We can ask someone who works here?” 

Hannah sighs. “Okay, but we have to ask them right away!” 

Jack nods solemnly. Thankfully he’s saved from having to do the asking himself by his father asking at the desk when they pay their admissions fee. “There are snowshoe hares in the Laurentian Maple Forest section,” Bob dutifully reports, and once they figure out what direction that’s in, they head that way, Hannah in the lead. 

Unfortunately the entire building is set up in a loop, making skipping to one climate section difficult. They have to go through the tropical rainforest to get to the maple forest, and Bo refuses to let them rush, too fascinated by all the birds. Hannah isn’t totally disinterested, but she ends up forcing Jack to break off from the group with her so they can go see if they can spot rabbits. Jack can’t say he’s terribly bothered.

It takes them a couple hours to be done looking at almost everything, and by that time they’re all hungry. They wind up eating at the restaurant on the grounds before they head back home, the kids talking all the while about all the animals.

The afternoon is a less-involved affair. Thankfully the weather is perfect for lounging around outside—and it’s not bad for swimming either. They just recently dewinterized their swimming pool, and Hannah and Bo take to testing it out with enthusiasm. Bo sticks to the shallow end, and Hannah does a few laps to prove she can before joining Bo in playing some sort of game they appear to have just invented. Jack sits at the edge with his legs in the deep end and hopes his sunscreen has a high enough SPF that he won’t get too burnt. 

It’s nice, just sitting in the sun, listening to his aunts and parents talking and laughing with each other and watching the kids play. It’s the kind of sweet summer day that Jack can actually feel himself enjoying. 

Eventually Hannah and Bo rope him into playing their game, and even though Hannah explains it to him multiple times, he can’t seem to get the rules. There’s something about not stepping in certain places and throwing a ball somewhere, and Jack swears they keep making up new things. In light of Jack’s good mood, though, Hannah’s exasperation at him is more hilarious than annoying.

“You’re not good at this,” Bo says solemnly, like he thinks Jack might not have noticed.

“I don’t know why we invited you, to be honest,” Hannah says, and Jack snorts.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m trying?” 

Hannah huffs at him and tells him the rules again. Jack nods along and, upon starting to play again, promptly screws it up. He has no idea how, but Hannah’s screeching _no no no_ is pretty solid evidence. 

“What if I just… leave you to this,” Jack suggests, and both of the kids frown at him. 

“You can get it,” Hannah says. “He can get it, right, Bo?”

Bo nods. “Don’t stop playing with us,” he says. 

“Okay,” Jack agrees. It’s nice to be wanted. 

He does get the game eventually, and when they get tired of the pool, Jack teaches them how to play Pétanque. 

They have a barbeque picnic for supper, and when the kids go inside to wash up, Jack wanders over to his dad and leans over his shoulder to look at the burgers. “Hi,” Bob says. “You want to do this?” 

“No,” Jack says. “You’re doing a great job. I’m just observing.” 

“I see. Are my burger flipping skills up to code?” Bob asks. 

“Don’t know, haven’t seen you flip any yet,” Jack says, and Bob rewards him with a great show of flipping burgers with way too much flair. Jack entirely fails to stifle his laughter, and Bob beams at him.

It occurs to Jack, then, that he hasn’t thought about Kent calling all day. Moments later, Bo comes running out of the house and hugs Jack around the legs for seemingly no reason, and Jack completely forgets again. 

It’s a good day. 

—

During the last weekend of June, Jack can’t get any ice time at his local rink because it’s being used for a figure skating competition. He doesn’t even consider skipping his on-ice workout—it’s worth the extra thirty minutes to drive to a different rink, especially when it’s not as if he has anything particularly pressing to do instead. 

There’s public skate after Jack’s reserved time is up, so the dressing room has quite a few people in it. Jack sticks to the corner he’s claimed for his own and hurries through getting ready to leave—he doesn’t want to take up space when others need it. 

He’s waiting for a family to get through the doorway so he can duck out when someone touches his arm. He turns to look, already assuming it was an accident, but no—it’s been well over a year, but he recognizes the crooked nose and scruffy hair of the guy in front of him.

“Jack?” the guy asks, seemingly baffled. He was definitely on Jack’s team in the Q; everyone called him Willis (Jack doesn’t think he ever knew why), but Jack is reasonably sure his name is Jimmy. 

Jack nods. “Jimmy?” he asks in return.

“Ah, yeah, but I go by James now,” he says, grinning. “Wow, man, it’s great to see you.” 

“Yeah, dude,” Jack agrees, allowing James to pull him into an awkward back-slapping hug. “Wow.”

“You look good,” James says. He sounds surprised, like he’d been expecting Jack to not be good. Jack thinks that’s fair enough—his Q teammates are the people who saw him at as close to his worst as anyone else. “What brings you here?” 

“Usual rink’s got figure skating,” Jack says. “You?”

James shrugs. “This is my usual rink,” he says.

Jack nods. He has no idea what he’s supposed to say; there was a time where he could fake his way through small talk, but he doesn’t remember how anymore. It doesn’t help that it feels overwhelmingly weird to be talking to James here, in a public dressing room in an arena in Montréal. “Do you—”

“Still play hockey?” James finishes. “Nah, man, I was never that good. I actually work at a bank now, doing the easy filing shit.”

“Oh,” Jack says. 

James laughs. “It’s not as bad as that, Zimms,” he says. “You look like I just told you I have a terminal illness.” 

“Shit, sorry,” Jack says. He’s having trouble comprehending the idea that James just decided he wasn’t going to play hockey anymore, but he doesn’t want to make James feel _bad_ about it. “No, that’s cool.” 

“Thanks,” James says, still looking amused. “Not as cool as the NHL, but what can you do?” 

Jack nods and tries for a smile. He’s suddenly terrified that James is about to bring up Kent. Jack’s not sure he could handle casually discussing how Kent just won the Calder.

“What about you?” James says, and Jack lets himself relax slightly. “What have you been up to?” 

Jack tenses up again, bracing himself for James to think he’s totally crashed and burned. “Uh, I was an assistant coach for a Pee-Wee team last season,” Jack says, shrugging like that will take the edge off whatever judgement James makes. 

James doesn’t make one. “That sounds cool!” he says. “Bet you get to meet all kinds of cute little kids, huh?”

Jack laughs more out of surprise and relief than anything. “Yeah, they’re pretty great,” he says. “Hard-working and talented.” He can’t help smiling at the thought of them.

“Awesome,” James says. “I’m guessing you’re going back next year then?”

He seems genuinely curious, not accusatory or anything, so Jack nods. “That’s the plan.” 

“Nice,” James says appreciatively. “Glad you’re doing well for yourself.”

James looks like he’s going to say something else, like how Jack hadn’t been doing well at all in the Q, but then he just smiles instead. It throws Jack off. “Thanks,” he says. “You, too.” 

“Thanks,” James says. They stand there for a short, silent moment that feels extra long for the awkwardness of it. Jack shifts his hockey bag on his shoulder, and James drops his own next to the empty space of bench they’ve been blocking. “Anyway, I better get my skates on. It was nice seeing you, dude.” 

“Yeah, nice seeing you,” Jack echoes, accepting James’ hand grasp and letting him bump their shoulders together. James takes a few steps away as soon as they let go, and Jack gets himself out of the dressing room quickly so they don’t have to extend the awkwardness any longer. 

Jack runs over the interaction in his head on the walk back to his car. He’s struck by how normal it had all been—none of the emotional turmoil he would have expected from a conversation with an old teammate. It’s weird, but he figures it’s a good thing. Julie would probably call this progress. 

—

In July, Jack gets a gig as a counsellor at a hockey camp. He’s skyping with Cyrille one evening after the private figure skating lessons she teaches are over, and he makes a comment that he misses having somewhere to go every day that isn’t the gardening centre, where the employees recognize him and are starting to make jokes about hiring him for his muscles. After that, she emails him the listing for the hockey camp job with a note that just says, “Apply for this.”

He runs it by his mom, and she thinks it’s a good idea, so he does. It turns out applying to a job is pretty stressful even when it doesn’t involve undergoing a grueling series of tests that will help determine whether or not you get to realize your lifelong dream. He must say something right at the interview—or that he put Coach Leclair as a reference must hold some weight—because they hire him the next day.

They assign him to the Pre-Novice kids, so it mostly consists of chasing five and six year olds around the ice for a couple hours a day, trying to keep them on their skates and their sticks in their hands. At the end of camp, the kids get to colour on the ice. Jack hands out the paint pens and then hovers by the boards, observing, until one of the boys scoots over on his knees and tells Jack to colour with him. There’s no way Jack’s going to say no to those gigantic eyes, so he takes the black paint pen Jake offers him and gets down on the ice.

He mostly doodles tiny hockey sticks and very, very bad maple leaves. One of the girls, Angela, tells him she likes his drawing, and near the end of the session, another, Katy, shyly tugs him over to her patch of ice and tells him the giant purple flower she painted is for him. He very solemnly tells her thank you and uses his phone to take a picture of her grinning next to it.

It’s a lot of fun, and Jack is both sorry for it to end and absolutely itching for the actual season to start. He misses standing behind the Conquérants bench, watching the boys he puts hours of work into each day do their best on the ice. He even misses the paperwork, though that’s not that much of a surprise when it comes to him.

He texts Cyrille the sentiment, and the response he gets is an “aw” so long it takes up his entire phone screen. It makes him smile when he sees it. He might miss Cyrille looking disbelieving and snapping her gum at him every day the most. 

—

Thankfully, the hockey season isn’t too terribly far away. The highest heat of the summer always means training camp can’t be more than a couple weeks away—and this year, it means that Jack’s garden has vegetables that are ready to be eaten. 

It’s late afternoon, and he’s picking ripe tomatoes off the vine when his mom comes out to the backyard. Jack straightens up and waves at her, and she waves back before shielding her eyes from the sun and squinting, first at Jack and then at the buckets lined up along the edge of the garden.

“You’ve certainly got a lot of food out here,” Alicia says. 

Jack shrugs. “It’s just the first bit,” he says.

“Somehow that’s not a comfort,” Alicia says with a laugh. “There better not be any canning in my future.” 

“I wouldn’t make you do it,” Jack says. 

Alicia scoffs. “I’d make you let me help,” she says, wandering over to the buckets and peering into the one of potatoes. “You know, we probably have enough variety here to make an entire meal.” 

“You think?” Jack asks. 

Alicia turns and smiles at him. “Want to try? We’d better get a headstart on eating all of this.” 

“Sure,” Jack agrees. She’s not wrong. Jack’s not sure he particularly wants to learn how to can vegetables if he can help it.

Alicia helps him finish picking ripe tomatoes—it goes a lot faster with four hands—and they bring everything inside to the kitchen. Alicia starts picking through the potatoes. “We have chicken in the freezer, so we can throw that in the oven and roast these with it,” she says. “Oh, and some onion. Find a good one, will you?” 

Jack sets about doing so and even valiantly volunteers to cut it up, to the utter displeasure of his tear ducts. Alicia hands him a napkin and makes a sympathetic face. “I used to cut onions as an excuse to have a good cry,” she says. 

Jack raises his eyebrows as he dries his eyes. “That’s weird,” he says, even though he kind of gets the concept. Needing an excuse to express emotion is familiar to him. 

Alicia laughs. “All right, maybe it is. What do you think we should put on the chicken?”

They deliberate over which seasonings to put on, and Jack helps cut up another potato when they decide they don’t have enough. The kitchen is comfortably quiet while they’re chopping, but Jack decides to break it anyway. “Did you make good progress with—what thing are you working on now?” 

“The children’s hospital fundraiser,” Alicia reminds him. “And good lord, I think we would have if half the committee weren’t incompetent.” She’s off, then, telling him in detail how bad the committee is at doing their jobs. The secretary, in particular, has a habit of derailing the conversation by making them hash out the same decisions multiple times. “If he could just learn how to listen, we wouldn’t have this problem,” she says as she shakes seasoning over the potatoes. Jack gently takes the bottle from her, slightly afraid that otherwise they’ll end up with a seasoned kitchen. 

“Sorry he’s awful,” Jack says. “At least you got a few things done? What was the theme again?” 

“Under the sea,” Alicia says, brightening. “Just like my high school prom.”

“One of the kids at camp loved _Finding Nemo_ ,” Jack offers. “Drew a huge clownfish on the ice and everything.” 

“That’s adorable,” Alicia says. Jack nods; it really had been. 

Once they’ve got the potatoes and chicken assembled and in the oven, they make a salad using the tomato and peppers—Jack ducks outside to get some green onion, and they use cilantro from Alicia’s indoor herb garden, which is thriving on the windowsill in the kitchen. 

Bob comes in when they’re discussing what they could do with the strawberries for dessert. “Something smells good,” he says. 

“Dinner will be ready soon,” Alicia says. “It’s all things from Jack’s garden, isn’t that great?” 

“That so?” Bob asks, looking at Jack. He nods, and Bob grins at him. “You sure have been working hard out there. I bet it tastes great.”

“I hope so,” Jack says, smiling back at Bob. He suddenly realizes that his dad looks… proud of him. Jack’s not sure he’s ever noticed that look on Bob’s face anywhere except at the rink. 

It’s still kind of a trip to think that the tiny seeds and seedlings Jack had planted this spring and tended all summer are fully grown and ready to be eaten. There’s something so viscerally satisfying about doing something that has such visible (and tasteable) results, and getting his dad’s praise on top of that is—well, there’s suddenly a lump in Jack’s throat that he has to swallow around.

“What can I do to help finish this up?” Bob asks.

“Come with me to the strawberry patch?” Jack suggests. “You can tell me which ones look best.” 

“I’m not sure my vision is good enough for that,” Bob jokes, but he follows Jack out the back door anyway.

“I don’t know, I think I’ve heard some good things from hockey analysts,” Jack teases.

Bob laughs. “Maybe years ago they were right,” he says. “I’m old now. What colour is that strawberry? Purple?” 

“Oh my God,” Jack says, rolling his eyes. He picks the strawberry Bob was pointing at, though; it actually is a nice shade of red. Bob joins him in the strawberry picking, and they work in silence for a bit. 

Jack is inspecting a small strawberry in an attempt to figure out whether it’s best left for now or if he should pick it when he notices that Bob has stopped picking strawberries entirely and is looking at him. “What?” he asks.

Bob shakes his head. “It’s just—you’re doing great, Jack. You’ve come so far since last summer.” 

Jack nearly drops his bucket of strawberries. “Oh, um—”

“I’m really proud of you,” Bob says. “I hope you know that.” 

“I, uh, yeah,” Jack says, clearing his throat. He hadn’t been expecting Bob to actually _say_ anything. He really doesn’t want to cry in the strawberry patch. “I know.”

“Good,” Bob says with a smile. “What do you think, do we have enough strawberries?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says, “I think we’re good.” 

—

Jack has therapy on the day before his birthday, which he finds rather fitting—may as well exit being eighteen the same way he started it. His therapy sessions haven’t been too bad this summer—he’s mostly been feeling good, so he just tells Julie about his week and they talk through what he’s been doing right. 

He doesn’t sense anything different when he sits down at the beginning of the session. He hasn’t been doing much at all for the past week, and he’s excited for training camp to start, so he tells Julie about that. He mentions that he has plans to go out for dinner with his parents, grandma, and aunt for his birthday, and that his parents suggested he invite Cyrille as well, so she’s probably going to come.

Julie nods along the entire time, then says, “It sounds like you’re in a good place lately, would you agree with that?” 

Jack shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“That’s great,” Julie says, smiling at him. “So where do you think you’re going to go from here?” 

Jack frowns in confusion. “Well, training camp…” he starts, but Julie shakes her head.

“No, sorry, let me be more specific. I mean to ask what your goals from here are. Think big picture—what do you want to be doing a year from now?” 

Jack opens his mouth to say that he wants to be doing the same thing he is now, then closes it, unsure that that’s really the truth. He thinks about it for a moment longer and can’t come up with any other really viable option, though, so he shrugs. “Probably the same thing I am now?” 

“Are you sure?” Julie asks. She doesn’t sound doubtful, per se, but she doesn’t sound convinced, either. It makes Jack doubt himself, which was probably the point. 

“I… don’t know,” Jack admits. 

“You don’t know if you’re sure?” Julie asks, and when Jack nods, she says, “That’s okay. We can assume you’re not and try discussing some ideas for what you could do instead, all right?” 

She’s asking, but Jack knows her well enough to know that if he didn’t agree he’d just find himself somehow talking about his options anyway, so he just nods again. 

“Do you want to play hockey again?” Julie asks.

“Yes,” Jack says, surprising himself with how fast he answers. He backtracks slightly and adds, “I mean, I always want to do something to do with the hockey world.”

“Right, like coaching,” Julie says, nodding. “But it sounds like you want to get back to playing yourself as well, is that right?”

It’s weird, thinking about getting back on the ice for real. The more he does, the more he feels like he really does want to, but he doesn’t know where he would begin to go from here. He already blew it once; trying to make it anywhere again just seems stupid. Whether he could make it wasn’t the question, though. “I guess I do,” he says.

“Okay,” Julie says. “In what capacity? Do you still want to aim for the NHL?” 

Jack recoils reflexively at the all-too-familiar question. He shrugs and looks away. Julie has a new plant in the corner of her office, which is a nice change from using the seascape for his staring contest. 

“If you do, it would be best to decide that now,” Julie says. “The more time you have, the easier it is to set up a strategy that will ensure your best chance at success.” 

That, unfortunately for Jack, makes a lot of sense. It’s just like hockey: if you want to score a goal, you make a plan for how you’re going to do it, and then you practice until you have the skills to execute it even when there are obstacles in your way. The problem is that Jack isn’t sure that he wants to score a goal. 

“You don’t have to,” Julie reminds him. “This is totally up to you. If you wanted to keep coaching minor hockey for the rest of your life, I’m sure you could.” 

Jack tries to imagine that. It’s not awful by any means; he thinks he’d be happy being in Coach Leclair’s position eventually, helping year after year of boys improve and move on to higher levels.

But it’s just that: eventually. Jack knows himself well enough to know that if any of the kids he coached made it to the NHL, he would be jealous of them. It’s still the dream—it’s still _his_ dream. It’s scary to realize because it’s so far outside of the comfort zone he’s built for himself, but he’s not ready to give up on it. He’s always been a goal-scorer.

“I think… I want to play in the NHL,” Jack says. “But I don’t see how I’m going to get there now. The Aces have my rights, but…”

“But?” Julie prompts. 

“But they don’t actually want a drug addict,” Jack says. “And even if they did… I don’t think, um, Vegas would be the best choice for me.” 

“You could ask them to send you back to your QMJHL team,” Julie suggests.

That’s never occurred to Jack, but she’s not wrong. The idea doesn’t appeal to Jack at all, though—he’d handled bumping into an ex-teammate fine, but going back to a team comprised of them sounds like hell. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to do that, either.”

Julie nods. “That’s fair enough,” she says. “It’s not the end of the road, though. You’re committed to coaching this season, so maybe what you could do is pick somewhere to play hockey next year.” 

“Pick somewhere?” Jack repeats. 

“Right,” Julie says. “There are other places to play hockey, aren’t there?”

Jack frowns. Just _picking_ somewhere seems much more simple than he thinks it actually is. He’s not sure if that’s a problem with how he’s thinking of it or how Julie is. “I guess I could sign with a team in Europe or Russia,” he says slowly. “Or, um. There’s college?”

“Do either of those ideas appeal to you?” Julie asks.

“I don’t know,” Jack says honestly. He’s never considered them as viable options. “I think I, uh, need time to think about it.” 

“Sure,” Julie says. “In fact, why don’t you make a list of the factors that impact your decision—like making money, level of competition, that kind of stuff—and then rank them by order of importance to you? That might help you decide, and if not, we can look at it next week and discuss.” 

“Okay,” Jack agrees. That sounds pretty difficult, but it’s definitely not as stressful as coming up with an answer on the spot, and it’s exactly the kind of organization Jack finds useful. 

—

Just like usual, Jack spends a good portion of his birthday on the phone talking to his extended family. He spends the most time talking to Maggie—who stole the phone from her dad as soon as she heard who he was talking to—about a book she just read that she thinks he’ll like, and only hangs up when his dad informs him that they’ll miss their reservation if they don’t leave soon.

Dinner is a low key affair at a steakhouse Jack picked. His parents stockpiled the cards he got in the mail, so he opens them in the time between when they order and when their food comes. It’s mostly the usual well-wishes and gift cards until he gets to a flimsy envelope at the bottom of the stack. Having already opened the gifts from everyone his family was expecting, they’re not paying attention when he opens it, brow furrowed, to find a generic birthday card wishing him a happy nineteenth. The only indication of who it’s from is “Kent” scrawled in tiny letters at the bottom of it. Jack snaps it shut and shoves it back in its envelope without saying anything. Cyrille must notice that he looks unsettled because she gives him a questioning look, but Jack shakes his head, and she doesn’t press him on it.

Jack gets quite a few nice gifts, but his favourite might be the joke book from Cyrille. She gleefully informs him that it’s so that he has material that reflects how much of a dork he is on the inside to fill awkward silences with. Jack’s well aware that he’s being chirped, but it’s such a nice and thoughtful gift that he doesn’t even care. 

By the time they get home from dinner, Jack has definitely run out of the energy needed for interacting with people. He excuses himself to hole up in his room by himself. He figures now is as good a time as any to work on the homework Julie assigned him—it feels appropriate to make a life-changing decision on his birthday.

He gets a fresh sheet of loose leaf and sits down at his desk with it. He writes down the factors Julie had said first—money and competition level—and then tries to think of more things that would influence where he wants to play hockey. 

The distance of the place from home is an obvious one—there’s a hell of a lot of difference between being on the other side of the Atlantic and being somewhere that’s at least on the same continent. After he writes that down, it gets harder. He stares around his room as if it can give him the answers. 

The goal is the NHL, so he tries to think of things that will contribute to that. He can’t think of anything specific and ends up just writing “ease of transition to the NHL.” That should be good enough. 

Four things doesn’t seem like enough to stake years of his life on. Jack stares at the paper, frowning. He tries to think of what the big differences between college and Europe are, but he can only think of things he’s already covered. 

It makes him nervous even just thinking about doing something new. No matter what he picks, it’s going to be stressful—but, it occurs to him, some things are more stressful than others. He debates for a moment over whether “stress level” is too similar to “competition level”, but ultimately decides that they’re different enough for it to work. 

From there the available support systems and the general community atmosphere seems obvious. If the past year of his life has taught Jack anything, it’s that he can’t do things without any backup. He wishes he could, but it’s way too likely that if he tries he’ll end up turning to his old coping mechanisms, and then he’ll be right back at rock bottom. That would be an insult to everyone that worked hard to get him where he is now. 

Six things somehow seems more reasonable, and he can’t think of anything else, so. He writes little numbers by them to rank how important they are—money is the least, stress level and community are both near the top with distance from home as a close runner-up, and everything else goes in the middle. He stares at the list; despite how much time he’s spent on it so far, it doesn’t really tell him anything when it’s formatted like this.

There must be a logical way to apply the factors and their importance to his actual options. He ends up googling and finds decision making matrix instructions that seem like they’ll work. 

It involves making a chart and giving a weight to all the factors, and then ranking how well each option applies to that factor on a scale from zero to five. Then all the ranks get multiplied by the weight and added up to give a total that will, supposedly, tell Jack the best choice for his life. 

Jack writes CIS/NCAA as the first option and Europe/Russia below that. After a moment, he adds Aces/Q as an option just to see what happens. If it somehow wins, he’ll know this strategy doesn’t actually work. 

It’s easy to rank them for things like money (college doesn’t pay, Europe pays a lot), transition to the NHL (Europe isn’t actually a track to the NHL), competition level (Europe is actual pro hockey, college and the Q aren’t) and distance from home (obvious). Stress level gives him pause—he gives Aces/Q a zero because his heart rate increases just _thinking_ about it. College would have a lot of non-hockey-related stress, but Europe is, again, professional hockey. He sticks to just thinking about the hockey and gives college more points in its favour. 

The community and support system factor is by far the hardest one to consider. His instinct is to give the Aces/Q a zero, but that’s just his emotions talking. The Aces _did_ draft him, so they would probably be willing to work with him to get him NHL-ready—but Jack’s not sure a willingness is enough, and with the community element… there’s no way he’d ever truly feel comfortable there. He gives them some points for it anyway. 

The other two are more difficult. He could probably find a good organization in Europe or Russia, but it’s still hard to say, and there’s likely to be a language barrier that would make things more difficult. College he really has no idea about at all, so he’s stuck there.

He stares blankly around his room. His eyes settle on his new joke book, and it occurs to him that maybe Cyrille knows enough to help him. She’s not involved with the hockey team as far as Jack knows, but McGill does have one, and she must at least hear about it, especially with her major being sports-related.

He picks up the joke book and flips it open to a random page, then takes out his phone and painstakingly types out, _‘How do you get ready for a party in outer space?’_

Cyrille responds almost right away. _‘How??’_

_‘You planet.’_

_‘Omg that’s so dumb :))))))’_

_‘:) would u say that uni hockey has a good community/support system?’_

It takes longer for Cyrille to respond to that, and Jack fidgets until she does. 

_‘Left field much? Yeah I think so, lots of help from admin/profs and the team always seems like they have each other’s backs. Why??? Considering it??’_

_‘I don’t know,’_ Jack sends back, and he barely has time to mark his chart with a four next to CIS/NCAA for that category before Cyrille replies, ‘ _Let me know when you do!’_

He smiles at his phone and looks at his completely filled in chart. Now all he has to do is some math and his future will be revealed to him.

It’s not a surprise, entirely, when the numbers stack up with a landslide victory to college hockey. Europe/Russia only beats out Aces/Q by a single point, which _is_ a bit surprising, but those numbers are in the high forties, and college’s total is in the seventies. Even without the chart, Jack thinks he might have come to that conclusion. Talking to the Aces was never something he actually wanted to do, and Europe or Russia is just so different and far away.

College, though. Jack hasn’t considered college since he told universities that were trying to recruit him in his early teens that he wasn’t interested, that he had already decided to go the CHL route. He’s never hated school and he does like learning, but it was never something he invested himself in. Everything he had went into hockey; there was nothing _left_ to invest. 

So high school had always been more of an obligation than anything, something he had to do in order to keep his place on the team, and college was something other kids were preparing for. It wasn’t something Jack got to do, and he didn’t really want to, either.

He looks at his chart again, at the crooked 72 he’d scrawled into the total box for CIS/NCAA. Apparently now he wants to go to college.

He picks up his phone again and texts Cyrille: _‘Definitely considering it.’_

She responds with a string of exclamation points, and then: _‘I think you’d love it.’_

It goes a long way to making Jack feel good about this. It’s a radical change from anything he ever thought he’d be doing, but he’s starting to really understand that that isn’t a bad thing.


	6. Chapter 6

[ _You have no messages. Main menu…_ ]

— 

Training camp starts bright and early on Saturday. Jack gets to the arena first and lets himself in with his key, turning on the lights along the way to the offices. He sits down behind his and Cyrille’s desk for a minute and smiles to himself. 

It’s not long before more of the staff show up. Jack makes semi-awkward small talk with Katharine, one of the A team’s assistant coaches, and when Coach Williams shows up with a new one in tow, Jack gets recruited to show her how to check in the kids when they arrive.

“It’s not hard,” he says. The new assistant coach—Jack is fairly sure her name is Marie—looks a bit nervous, so he’s trying to be reassuring. He’s not sure it’s working. He holds up the two highlighters he’d shoved in his jacket pocket earlier. “Pink or yellow?” 

“Yellow,” Marie says, taking it from him. He offers her the clipboard with the lists of names as well. 

“Basically just highlight when they arrive and tell them where to go,” he says after she takes it, shrugging. “Easy stuff.”

“Making the new staff do all the grunt work, eh?” Marie asks. She shifts the clipboard so it’s settled neatly in the crook of her arm. 

Jack laughs. “Yeah, that’s pretty much how it works. You’re me last season.” 

“Ah, well, if you got through it, so can I,” Marie says, looking down at the clipboard.

Jack stares at her, unsure if that was supposed to be a personal dig at him or just a joke that he’s reading too much into. In the next moment, she looks up and says, “Your name was Jack, right?” 

“Oh, uh,” Jack stutters out, “yes.” He feels like an oversensitive idiot.

“Nice to meet you,” Marie says, smiling at him. 

“Yeah, you too,” Jack says. He attempts to smile back and then promptly flees, determined to hide in the office for a good few minutes so he can get over himself before he goes out on the ice. 

Cyrille is skating idle laps when he emerges, so he decides to join her. A few kids Jack doesn’t know arrive early, but the first one there he does know is Grenzy. He must enter the ice when Jack and Cyrille are facing away, because he takes Jack completely by surprise when he barrels straight into his back. He catches himself on the boards and manages to turn around in Grenzy’s grip.

“Coach Z! Coach Durand! Hi!” Grenzy says. Jack doesn’t think he’s ever seen him quite this energetic. 

“Hey, Grenzy,” Cyrille says. Grenzy lets go of Jack and beams at Cyrille. “Did you have a good summer?” 

“Yeah!” Grenzy says, skating backward a little. “We went camping so much that I never want to go again.” 

“That sounds… fun?” Jack says questioningly. 

“It was,” Grenzy says, nodding so hard it makes his braided hair bounce. Jack’s kind of impressed. “Is anyone else here? I was the first one in my dressing room.”

“No one from last year yet,” Jack says. 

“Why don’t you go say hi to some of the new kids?” Cyrille suggests. 

Grenzy turns to contemplate the cluster of boys she’s gesturing at. “Okay,” he agrees after a second, then skates away. 

“He’s in a good mood,” Cyrille says. 

“Are they all going to hug us?” Jack asks. 

“It’s possible,” Cyrille says. 

Not all the boys from last year who are in Group 1 do hug them, though they’re all visibly excited to see them, and Chicken more than makes up the difference by insisting on hanging off Jack’s back for an entire lap of the rink before he’ll do anything else. 

Jack leads a few of the drills and follows for the rest of them. He shouts out corrections to the kids that he knows and skates closer to give advice to the ones he doesn’t—it’s a good way to learn their names along with their training camp numbers, even if he knows he’s going to be confused by nicknames for a while.

It’s a far cry from last year, when he’d been too nervous to say anything for most of the day. By the time they wrap up with Group 1 and send them to have a break while Group 2 skates, Jack is fully back into the coaching mindset.

“Good to be back?” Coach Leclair asks him while they’re both hanging back, observing a skating drill that Cyrille and Marie are leading.

“The best,” Jack says honestly. One of the new kids loses his balance and falls, sliding a few feet across the ice, and both Jack and Coach Leclair make an aborted movement toward him. He gets right back up and joins in again, though, and they both relax. 

Coach Leclair smiles at Jack. “I’m glad to hear it.” 

Group 2 has a few standout players—Lion, of course, and a new shutdown defender who tells Jack his name is Jimmy when asked but otherwise doesn’t talk much. Bear’s younger brother is paired with him and quickly earns the nickname Saver from the other kids in honour of his dedication to throwing himself in front of the puck—to sometimes ineffective, but always humorous, ends. Jack’s struck by how dissimilar he is to Bear; he has the same tall stature and wide shoulders, but none of Bear’s stoicism. Still, though, Jack doesn’t think he’s going to need Jack to look out for him too much. 

They break in the mid-afternoon for lunch, which Jack spends sitting at a table with the other assistant coaches and letting himself eat the terribly unhealthy concession stand fries in honour of the first day back. He makes sure to invite Marie to sit with them, and she smiles gratefully at him. 

Jack claims a clipboard from the office and starts taking notes in earnest for the rest of the day. He’s reasonably sure, just from preliminary observations, that all the boys who were AA last year will be again this year, but it’s not guaranteed for anyone but Chicken (because of his status as captain), and they have ten slots to fill besides. 

Once he’s actually got names on paper in front of him to match to practice jersey numbers and small faces behind their masks, it’s much easier to put his thoughts in order—he doesn't forget, for instance, that the player who couldn’t take a correction in an earlier drill is the same one who just rushed the net for a good goal.

It also makes for less of a surprise when number 31 skates up to him near the end of the session. “You know my brother,” he says, sounding vaguely accusatory, and Jack blinks at him. 

“Do I?” he asks, glancing down at his papers and then back at who he just learned is Dennis Lambert. 

Dennis nods. “You played with him,” he says. 

Jack frowns, trying to remember skating with a Lambert. He can only come up with ‘Lamby’, and he’s not sure if that was a legitimate nickname or something he just made up. “In the Q?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Dennis confirms. “Steven? I want to make AA so you’ll be my coach, because he says he never played with anyone better than you and Kent Parson.”

“Did someone say Parson?” Lion asks, stopping short. He grabs Tiger’s arm and stops him as well. “Are you talking about Parse?” 

“Uh,” Dennis says. 

“We met him,” Tiger says, “at the playoffs. Ours, I mean.”

“It was so cool,” Lion confirms. “Do you want to see the picture I got with him?”

Lion and Tiger are towing Dennis away before he can say anything. He doesn’t look like he minds, and it saves Jack from having to come up with a response, so that’s a relief. He still doesn’t want to talk about Kent with anyone, really, least of all a kid he’s supposed to be coaching. 

Tiger looks back and gives Jack a thumbs up, and Jack returns it, abruptly bemused. It occurs to him that maybe Lion and Tiger were intentionally saving him from having to talk about Kent—it doesn’t seem so farfetched when he thinks about how perceptive Tiger is. The playoffs are kind of a blur to Jack now, but he’s sure he didn’t hide how upset he was that well. 

He knows he has his kids’ backs all the way, but he’s never quite realized that it went both ways before. It’s a nice thought.

—

Training camp seems to go by a lot more quickly this year. Jack chalks it up to already knowing the drill and having a system in place. His hardest job this year is considering which kid should have the A that used to belong to JT—it’s even harder than selecting which boys he wants to suggest for AA, so Jack’s mostly been avoiding it. 

He’s coming up on a deadline, though, and most of the boys from last year are grouped together for a mock game, so he starts actively paying attention. He labels a blank sheet on his clipboard with “Potential A”. He’s going to do this. 

Lion had an A last season mostly based on his on-ice talent, and Jack is reasonably sure he’s going to keep it. Wearing a letter isn’t just about talent, though—it’s more about leadership, and the Conquérants are lucky enough to be such a cohesive team that it’s difficult to pick one standout leader. 

Garden is a great example of a leader, always offering corrections and encouragement to the rest of the team; even at this training camp Jack’s seen him working with the younger kids unprompted on more than one occasion. But Rebel, with his steady presence both between the pipes and in the room, would also be a good choice, and then there’s Gibs, who would gladly throw down his gloves to protect any one of his teammates (though thankfully that only happened once—the game misconduct and the lectures from all three coaches seemed to cure him of that tendency). 

The problem, Jack is finding, is that there are so many different ways to lead. The difficulty is choosing which kind of leadership he thinks the team could most use. 

He’s startled out of his thoughts by one of the red team goalies—number 9, the other kids call him Ruby if Jack is hearing them correctly—sitting down next to him. Jack frowns and looks around; apparently the period ended without him noticing. 

He only missed the last few minutes, though, and he didn’t miss any goals, so he knows that Ruby played a solid twenty minutes. “Nice work out there,” Jack tells him.

Ruby peers at him over the top of his water bottle. “Thanks.”

“Excited for the season?” Jack asks.

“Yes,” Ruby says, nodding, “there’s much less turmoil this year.” 

Jack blinks in confusion, unsure what turmoil Ruby is referring to—maybe he’s having problems at home? Jack intends to ask, but then Coach Leclair comes over to talk to the team and he forgets entirely. 

—

The coaches, once again, all stay late on the second last day of camp to finalize the rosters. Jack goes out during the break and brings back donuts, because that was clearly what was missing from this meeting last year. Sugar is always a good idea.

Katharine and Cyrille are debating whether an A-team player from last year has improved enough to move up to AA—Katharine thinks yes, Cyrille thinks no. Both of them take donuts from Jack without looking up, which is fine. Everyone seems content to let them hash this out; Marie points out that she doesn’t know if he’s improved or not, and both Coach Williams and Coach Leclair seem to think Katharine and Cyrille are the experts here. 

Jack figures he’ll give it another minute and then attempt to weigh in with his opinion. He’s always been a little intimidated by Katharine, but he thinks he’s probably on her side with this, so it won’t be too stressful. He picks out a chocolate glazed donut in the meantime. 

“His shot has improved,” Katharine is saying. “And his skating. He’s not leaps and bounds better than the rest of the A team, but I don’t think keeping him with them is the best choice.” 

Cyrille shakes her head. “If he doesn’t mesh well with them, how do we know he’ll be any better in AA?” 

“I didn’t say Nants didn’t get along with the team,” Katharine protests. “He does! I’m sure he’d be happy to stay with them. I just also think it would help him to skate with boys like Sebastien.” 

“He’s not going to be on a line with Chicken,” Cyrille says.

“I mean in practice, too,” Katharine says. 

Jack licks the last of his donut off his fingers and reaches for a napkin. “What’s Nants’ work ethic like?” he asks.

Katharine and Cyrille both look up at him. “Oh, um,” Katharine says, “great, obviously. He didn’t improve without putting the work in.” 

Jack nods. “In my opinion, that’s what solves it. It’s like Gaudy—we debated him last year, and he really did put in the work that he needed to for success.”

“He has a point,” Coach Williams says. He and Coach Leclair both look amused by the entire conversation.

“That _was_ a good call with Gaudette,” Coach Leclair agrees, aiming a smile in Jack’s direction. Jack awkwardly looks away, uncomfortable with the praise, and has to stop himself from actually shrugging.

Cyrille makes a face. “I still don’t think he’s a good enough skater,” she says. “But I guess if I’m outvoted…”

“That’s a good idea, we’ll take a vote,” Coach Leclair says. 

They do it anonymously by writing on slips of paper that Marie rips up for them, and Coach Williams counts them. “Looks like Tousignant is on the AA team this year,” he says. “Was that our last guy?”

“I think so,” Coach Leclair says, writing on the papers in front of him and then handing them to Coach Williams. “Now we”—he gestures to himself, Jack, and Cyrille—”have another matter to discuss.”

“The A,” Cyrille says, nodding. 

“The A,” Coach Leclair agrees. “I’m guessing from your unenthusiastic faces that you’re finding it as difficult to pick as I am.” 

Jack nods. His “Potential A” sheet has had every repeat AA member written on it at least once. 

There’s a long pause, and then, “Why not Gaudy?” Cyrille suggests.

“I thought maybe…” Jack says hesitantly. He’d mostly ruled Gaudy out for fear of it looking like favouritism—he had spent all that extra practice time with him last season, even if it was solely at Gaudy’s request and he would gladly do it for anyone. 

“It’s like you said,” Cyrille says when it’s clear Jack isn’t going to finish his sentence, “he puts in the work. That’s the message we want to send, right?” 

Coach Leclair is nodding. “I think that’s exactly it,” he says. “Are we settled?” 

Jack feels emotion prickle in the corners of his eyes. Last year he’d had to work up the courage to fight to get Gaudy on the team, and now Gaudy’s come so far that he’s deserving of a letter. It’s like a reward for Jack’s own perseverance all by itself.

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat, “we’re settled.” 

—

“How are you doing?” Julie asks.

Jack shrugs. “Not bad,” he says.

Julie looks at him appraisingly and asks, all too knowingly, “Is there something on your mind?” 

Jack sighs. “Sort of? I mean, yes. I know we agreed that it was fine to focus on training camp rather than college, but now that training camp is over I kind of, uh…” He fidgets awkwardly. He really doesn’t want to admit this aloud, but he knows that if he wants help dealing with it, he has to. “There’s so much to do that it all seems impossible.”

“Do you want to give up?” Julie asks.

“Do I _want_ to?” Jack repeats. “Kind of, yeah. But, um, I think I want to beat it more. I just don’t know how.”

“Good,” Julie says, looking particularly pleased with him. “Let’s see what we can do to make it easier. How do you feel about breaking it down into steps?”

Jack nods, the tension he’d been holding in his neck and shoulders starting to ease a bit. “I feel good about that.” 

“Okay,” Julie starts, tone all business, “first off: do you think you want to apply to American colleges?”

Jack hesitates, and Julie waits a moment before adding, “You don’t have to make a decision about where to go, we just need to know if you want to keep those options open.”

Jack nods. Having options seems like the best plan to him. “Then yeah, I think so.” 

“So your first step is going to be the SATs, then,” Julie says, picking a notebook up off her desk and flipping to a new page to write that down. “The earliest you can take them is October, which you’re going to want to do in order to get your scores.”

“A test?” Jack asks. He can practically feel his palms starting to sweat already. 

“That’s school,” Julie says lightly. “Let’s break that down too, all right?”

“Okay,” Jack agrees. “What’s usually on that test? I can make up a study schedule to fit around my work schedule.”

Julie nods and turns to her computer, looking up the details of the SATs online. Jack moves off the couch and takes the extra office chair Julie has so he can look at the screen, and eventually they have a fully colour-coded schedule made up. It makes Jack feel better to have his time clearly blocked off into what he has to worry about when. 

“What after that?” Jack asks.

“Then you can start actually applying,” Julie says. “Start by making up a list of places to apply and then finding out what they require—you’ll have to write some essays and provide transcripts, maybe some references as well.”

“Um,” Jack says.

Julie smiles at him reassuringly. “The best part of this study schedule is that we can just extend it and have these blocked off times dedicated to different parts of the application process. You’ll be done in no time.”

Jack frowns. “You mean I’ll be done months from now.”

Julie laughs. “No time,” she repeats. “Home free by November at the latest.” 

“Right,” Jack says. If Julie thinks so, with all her wisdom and the research she’s clearly done, then Jack isn’t going to argue about it. 

He leaves his therapy session with the schedule for the next two months of his life clutched in his hands. It’s still overwhelming, and he thinks that’s not likely to go away, but it doesn’t feel quite so impossible. All he has to do is keep himself grounded and moving forward. That he can do.

—

Jack’s plan gets off to a good start—he registers to take the SATs and then buys a bunch of books that are supposed to help him study for it. It still seems manageable, which is good for his ability to compartmentalize. 

He’s made a promise to himself that preparing for life after coaching the Conquérants won’t interfere with the work he’s doing now. If this is his last ever season with them, he’s not going to waste it worrying about the future. He wants to be able to look back on this time fondly rather than with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the remembered stress. He has his last year in the Q for that.

So, three practices into the Conquérants’ regular season schedule, Jack is out on the ice thinking about nothing but how best he can help the kids. He has his clipboard in one hand, pen in the other, and he feels right at home blowing his whistle to start each pair of players off on the pass-and-shoot drill they’re doing. 

“Good stuff, Dawson, Ryan!” Jack calls to them before blowing the whistle again. Ryan flashes him a thumbs up as he skates by to rejoin the line, and Dawson looks vaguely terrified behind him. Jack thinks Dawson’s nickname might be Fury, but judging by how scared Dawson always seems to look, Jack’s not convinced he’s catching the boys’ conversations right. 

Dennis and Lion are up next—Dennis was quickly christened as Sheepy once the kids found out his last name is Lambert, and Jack gets a certain amount of amusement from asking him to skate with Lion. It doesn’t hurt that they work pretty well together, too. The puck goes from tape to tape to tape, and Lion gets it past Ruby, their newest goalie, easily.

Letty and Gazzy don’t fare so well. Jack has to send them back to start the drill over twice, but they eventually get it, despite Gazzy’s shot on goal being snapped up by Ruby’s glove. 

“Good work,” Jack tells them, tapping them on their helmets as they skate by. 

There are only a few more pairs to go after that, and then they move on to the power skating portion of practice, followed by a quick half-ice scrimmage. Coach Leclair rounds them all up at the end of that, gives the standard speech about expecting them to work hard and come to off-ice conditioning next Thursday, and then he tells them to get out of his hair. The boys all laugh and tap their sticks on the ice at that. 

Cyrille adds that they need volunteers to help clean up, and a few of the boys hang back instead of heading straight for the dressing room. Jack gets to work collecting stray pucks from the side of the ice they weren’t using for scrimmage. Halfway through, he reaches for a puck and is stopped by Tiger skating up to him, Jimmy hovering right behind him. Jack doesn’t think he’s seen Tiger without Jimmy since the season started; he’s gathered that they were already best friends from school. 

“So Shakes has a question,” Tiger says. 

“I’m all ears,” Jack says, looking at Jimmy. 

“He wants to know what you think the thing he most needs to work on is,” Tiger says. 

Jack raises his eyebrows. “Does he?” he asks.

Tiger shrugs and Shakes nods, so Jack considers it. He leans down to pick up the puck he’d been reaching for and bounces it in his hand a couple times, thinking. “Your awareness,” he says to Shakes. “Making sure you’re reading what everyone on the ice is doing so that you can be ready. Both of you need to work on that, actually. It’s important for d-men to be a few steps ahead of the game.” 

Shakes nods solemnly. Tiger scrunches up his nose and shrugs again. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks, Coach Z.” 

Jack thinks that’s going to be the end of it, but Shakes touches Tiger’s shoulder and whispers something to him, and Tiger’s eyes light up. He looks up at Jack again. “Do you think Shakes and I work well together?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He doesn’t have to think about that one. “You’ve been doing great.”

“Ha!” Tiger says, turning to Shakes. “See?” 

Shakes scowls and shoves at Tiger’s shoulder. Tiger glides away backward, laughing loudly. 

“Sore loser!” he says, voice raised, before turning and skating off in the direction of the bench. Shakes makes a disgruntled noise and skates after him. Jack keeps watching them until they’re off the ice, Tiger still laughing and Shakes doing his best to knock Tiger’s helmet off his head. 

Jack doesn’t have a clue what’s going on with that. It seems to all be in good fun, though, so he’s not too worried. It’s just another quirk to this year’s Conquérants, and it hits Jack all over again how much he loves that he’s been here long enough to watch the team evolve. He’s looking forward to a season of watching all the weird things the boys get up to. 

—

The Conquérants kick off the season with a game against the Dynamiques that they win easily, 6-2. It’s a feel-good start to the season—better than last year’s crushing disappointment, at the very least. It’s almost harder, though, to have to remind the boys that they’ve got a long way to go, but they all just seem excited. 

The only one who hadn’t seemed over the moon immediately after the game was Harts. He was quiet in his corner of the dressing room, fistbumping a few of the boys when they came up to him, but otherwise keeping his head down and concentrating on getting changed. It wasn’t like he personally had a bad game, either; he had a good shot on goal and managed to help out their defenders a little. Jack is worried about him, but he doesn’t have enough details or prior evidence to do anything about it, so it just lingers in the back of his mind.

“Are you spacing out right now?” Cyrille asks, waving a hand in Jack’s face. They’re at the library on the McGill campus because Cyrille had volunteered to help Jack study if he met her there. He figured he could use a change of scenery, so he agreed. “Because I’m timing you, you know.” 

Jack knows. He’s supposed to be doing this practice test, but he can’t concentrate. “Have you noticed anything up with Harts?” 

Cyrille frowns at him. “Test,” she says, pointing at the paper in front of Jack.

Jack sighs and turns back to the geometry question. She’s right, he needs to focus. 

Fifteen minutes later, Cyrille’s phone chimes softly, and she looks up from her textbook to shut it off, then looks at Jack expectantly. He stares at his booklet in horror.

“I wasn’t done,” he says. 

“Not even almost?” Cyrille asks. 

Jack makes a face and flips through the pages. “Um, well. No? Maybe… just over half done? I don’t know.” 

“Well, no sweat, you’ve still got time before the real thing,” Cyrille says. “Do you want to go over the hard questions?” 

Jack’s fingers are starting to shake slightly. He feels overloaded. He can’t bear the thought of working so hard and then taking the test and not being able to finish, so then he fails it, and then he doesn’t get into any colleges, and then he never makes it to the show, and—he forces himself to stop. He puts down his pencil and looks at Cyrille.

“Can we take a break?” he asks. He just needs to get out of his own head for a minute before he can stomach looking at another SAT question. 

“Sure thing,” Cyrille agrees easily. “About Harts—I haven’t really noticed anything? He’s fine on the ice, and I think he’s just quiet in general, if that’s what you mean.”

“Maybe,” Jack allows. “Shakes is quiet, though, and I don’t get the same… disconnected feeling from him? Harts seems sad, and I don’t think he was before.”

“Huh,” Cyrille says. “We’ll have to keep an eye on him, then.”

Jack nods. “I could be making it up, so.” He shrugs. 

“I doubt you are,” Cyrille says. It makes Jack feel better that she trusts him with this. At least there’s something he’s good at. “Hey, you wanna go grab coffee before we get back to it?”

Jack doesn’t think caffeine is the greatest idea, but he wouldn’t mind something warm to drink—it might be soothing after sitting all tensed up for so long, and he’d definitely like to stretch his legs. “Yeah,” he agrees, “let’s go.” 

—

The end of September is jam-packed—Jack’s only downtime, it feels like, is family dinner and when he’s sleeping. There’s a lot to deal with, but Jack’s surprised to find that it’s not quite overwhelming, not when he has everything carefully scheduled. As long as he sticks to it, he feels good. 

He’s got his practice test time down—he only consistently goes over for the critical reasoning section now, and he has strategies that are helping with that—but the boys are on a losing streak, and the balancing act between keeping their spirits up and working them hard so they’ll improve is starting to take a toll on Jack. It’s hard not to worry about everything at once, but Jack can’t let himself.

He has his email open on the computer because he was checking it before one of his blocked off study sessions—it’s been all grammar for the past hour, and if Jack never has to stare at a set of sentences that all have commas in different spots again, it will be too soon. It’s almost a relief to get to switch to worrying about tonight’s game. 

He’s about to close the browser and turn off his laptop before he leaves for the rink when a new email pops up. Jack pauses long enough to read “Kent Parson” in the sender field and then freezes, staring. 

After the birthday card, Jack was half-expecting to hear something else from Kent—a text, maybe, or even a phone call. There wasn’t anything, and Jack was honestly too busy to dwell on it very much.

An email—that’s a surprise. They’ve never emailed. 

There isn’t a subject line, and that and the surprise of it is enough that Jack can’t help but click on the email.

It’s—long. Long enough that Jack would have to scroll to see the end. He gets as far as a sentence into it before he shakes his head and closes the browser. He can’t deal with whatever apologies or non-apologies or accusations or—whatever Kent felt the need to put in an email to him. He’s not even sure he could handle a simple “hi” from Kent right now. There’s too much going on. Jack only has so much emotional capacity. 

He thinks about it for the entire drive to the arena, though. He feels almost guilty. That email had looked like it could be thoughtful, something that Kent put a lot of time into, at least, and after Kent did what Cyrille asked and didn’t call for almost four months… 

Jack slams his car door harder than necessary when he gets out. He doesn’t owe Kent anything, he reminds himself. Kent shouldn’t have needed to be told to back off in the first place, and anyway, if the email _is_ thoughtful, it deserves to be read when Jack has the time and energy to be thoughtful in response. If it’s not, then it doesn’t matter if Jack is ignoring it.

He doesn’t owe Kent anything, he tells himself again as he walks into the arena. And his boys have a game to win tonight. That’s what’s important. 

—

It’s cold the day Jack takes the SAT. It’s the second day of October and the first real cold snap. Jack doesn't think to wear a particularly heavy coat, and the exam room clearly doesn't have the heat turned up. He spends the first ten minutes unsure if he’s shaking because he’s nervous or just shivering, and then he settles in, answers a few questions, and realizes he’s got this. After so much time dedicated to studying and stressing, the test itself is anticlimactic. 

He’s slow enough that he’s one of the last to finish each section, but he answers every question, even if he has to make an educated guess. Jack’s anxiety spikes every time he has to traipse back into the exam room after a break between sections, and it feels endless, like the rest of his life is going to be block after block of SAT questions, watching the clock at the front of the room count down the seconds until he gets to breathe for a moment and then do it all again. 

Eventually, though, it does end. He walks back to his car in a daze, still going over questions in his head, until it hits him that it’s actually _over_. He doesn’t need to worry about it anymore, and he’s pretty secure in the knowledge that he did his best, so. He’s feeling good.

 _‘I’m free!’_ he texts Cyrille when he gets to his car. A moment later, his phone is ringing. He answers it, already beaming. 

“You’re free!” Cyrille says. “Did it go well?” 

“I guess we’ll find out,” Jack says, not wanting to jinx himself—not that saying anything can change his answers now, but it’s better safe than sorry. 

“Okay, yeah, whatever,” Cyrille scoffs. “You studied so much for that stupid thing, I bet you blew it out of the water. You’re not gonna be saying you’re free when you’re preparing for a zillion midterms at a fancy American university this time next year.” 

“Wow, thanks for the pep talk,” Jack deadpans. 

“Shut up,” Cyrille says, voice fond. “You’ll be playing hockey, too, so.” 

Jack’s heart skips a beat. _Hockey_. Fuck, he misses it. As much as he feels like the Conquérants are his team, it’s not the same as playing the game himself. Being a step closer to getting that back—it’s good. It’s really good. And fuck, he’s just glad the test is over with. 

“You’re right,” he says. “Hey—want to grab lunch before we have to be at the arena?” 

“Want to? I’m already halfway out the door. I can’t wait for you to bore me to tears with the details even if you can’t legally tell me the actual questions or whatever. I’m not letting this ‘we’ll see’ bullshit stand.”

Jack smiles. “Fine,” he says. “The usual place?” 

“Heck yeah,” Cyrille says, and then she hangs up on him.

Jack starts his car, still smiling to himself. 

—

“Everyone here?” Coach Leclair asks. 

“Everyone but Gazzy,” Jack says, “and his mom already called from the road, as usual. They’re on their way.” 

“Great,” Coach Leclair says, nodding and clapping Jack on the shoulder. “Send ‘em out to warm up when they’re ready. I gotta think about my pre-game pep talk.” 

Jack highly doubts that Coach Leclair needs to think about his pep talk that much—there are things he says to the boys sometimes that Jack is sure he heard himself from Coach Leclair years ago. He supposes it takes a certain amount of skill to make it sound just as encouraging every time, though. That’s why Jack usually leaves it to him. When Jack tries to bring out the tired cliches, they really do sound tired.

They’re in Lachenaie tonight, looking to actually win a game for the first time in too long. The boys are restless, and fair enough—it has to be frustrating for them to keep losing even when they really do play a good game. It’s always a process, settling in and getting used to the start of the season and the new team, but they’re far enough into it that they should be getting past that. 

Gazzy shows up just as Jack is helping Shakes thread new laces into his skates after his broke (Jack suspects a prank, and he’s not looking forward to giving another lecture about the proper time and place for shenanigans—never, preferably, and definitely not right before a game). 

“Hey, Gaz,” Tiger says. “Look what happened to Shakes’ skates.” He holds up the remnants of the laces.

“Whoa,” Gazzy says, and Tiger nods solemnly.

“Get suited up quick,” Jack reminds Gazzy, and Gazzy snaps him a salute. He’s pretty sure that kid is going to be able to put his gear on three times as fast as anyone else for the rest of his life. 

He leaves them all to it in order to listen to Gazzy’s mother apologize at least six times—both she and Gazzy’s father work long days and they’re on a tight schedule, and Jack gets it, honestly, he doesn’t need to hear how sorry Lorette is again.

He manages to convince Lorette that it really is fine and send her to sit in the stands with enough time to urge Gazzy onto the ice for the end of warmups. Coach Leclair gives the same pre-game speech he usually does, and then it’s time for puck drop. 

The game starts out slow—the Intrépide seem to be biding their time, which unnerves Jack. He tries not to let it show and scribbles notes on his clipboard. Maybe something he tells the boys during intermission will sink in for once.

The Conquérants aren’t exactly playing _badly_ —a bit sloppy, a few more turnovers than there should be, but they’re communicating on the ice and Rebel is a beast in net, so it’s better than it could be.

Their defence is a wreck, though. Jack’s starting to despair—Shakes and Tiger seem to be the only defencemen alive out there. The Intrépide keep getting shot after shot on net, and Rebel playing his heart out is not a long-term solution to this problem.

There’s three minutes left in the first and they’re down by two when Jack asks Coach Leclair, “What do you say to shuffling around the D?”

“Can’t get much worse,” Coach Leclair says grimly. Cyrille leans over to listen and nods in agreement. “What’ve you got?” 

“I’m thinking we put Tousignant with Sauvé, try Grenon on a wing and see if that gets him skating faster. Keep Tremblay and Lavoie together, get them out there as much as possible,” Jack says as Coach Leclair listens, eyes still focused on the ice. “And… that leaves us with Laferiere and LaViolette.”

“Good,” Coach Leclair agrees. “What do you think about getting them to try this play?” 

He shows Jack the relevant diagram on his notes, and Jack studies it for a moment before nodding. “Could be good against that line with number seven they keep sending out.” 

“We’ll try it,” Coach Leclair says. 

They relay the information to the boys during intermission. Fury and Nurple high five, and Nants makes a face when he’s told he’ll be moving to defence, but he doesn’t actually protest. 

Chicken leads the charge out of the dressing room when it’s time, yelling about conquering the ice for their forefathers. It’s what he does every time they’re losing, but it never gets any less amusing. 

They have a _much_ better second period. The defence tightens up—Fury and Nurple are particularly good together, which is a happy surprise. They’re doing a good job of protecting Rebel and clearing the defensive zone, and they assist on both Letty’s and Gibs’ goals. The Intrépide respond, though, and at the end of the second they’re still down by one. 

“All right, guys, sick work,” Gaudy says. “Keep that up and I think we’ve got this.” 

“That goal was stupid,” Tiger says, obviously mad at himself. “Sorry for being off in la-la-land, Rebel.”

“You can’t be everywhere,” Rebel says diplomatically. Shakes punches Tiger in the shoulder, and Tiger seems to settle himself a bit. 

Chicken chugs his entire water bottle and drops it into his bag. “We’re gonna _win_ ,” he announces. The dressing room is quiet, but they’re all nodding, and Jack lets himself hope.

They do win. Fury and Nurple rack up another assist each on Sheepy’s goal. Lion scores the go-ahead goal a few minutes later, and they manage to keep the lead even as the Intrépide keep the pressure on until the final minutes, when they pull their goalie and Garden scores an empty netter on the breakaway. It’s the cherry on top of a killer fucking comeback. 

The excitement in the locker room is a far cry from the undercurrent of frustration there had been before the game.

“We’ve fucking arrived!” Monty yells from where he’s standing on top of a bench, and then he jumps down and starts doing pushups without any of the coaches even saying anything.

He’s not wrong—beating the Intrépide, reigning champs from last season as they are, is not nothing.

“All right, settle down!” Coach Leclair says, voice raised. The boys obey, sitting down and paying attention. “Good work today, boys,” he tells them. “You should be proud of yourselves. Let’s bring that same heat tomorrow, eh?”

“Burn, baby, burn!” Letty yells, and the dressing room erupts in laughter and cheers again.

—

With the SATs done, Jack gets to turn his focus to actually deciding on schools to apply to—thankfully not hard, since all he had to do was make sure they have a good hockey program. He also had to decide what academic program to apply to, which stumped him until he mentioned it to his mother. She looked at him, a little confused, and pointed out that history is an option almost everywhere. Jack was trying to be practical, thinking of studying something sports-related like Cyrille is doing or maybe business—but his goal is pro hockey, anyway, and he likes history enough that he’ll probably always _want_ to do homework for it, which is important. 

By the time Thanksgiving and the family that comes with it has come and gone, Jack’s got almost all his applications finished. Some of them were fairly simple, but others, especially the American ones, required answering questions about his goals and/or writing an essay. He had to find a few people to be references as well, a task that involved some seriously awkward phone calls to his high school teachers. The only really consistent thing about the applications is how confused Jack inevitably gets about how the electronic forms work. 

“Oh my God,” he mutters at his laptop screen. “What the… fuck, what—”

“Everything all right in here?” his dad asks, peering into Jack’s room. “You’ve been muttering for at least an hour.”

“I can’t make this thing accept my details,” Jack says. “I have all the required fields done, and then I hit submit and it _doesn’t work_.” He’s about to take a hammer to the keyboard if it doesn’t work in the next five seconds. He doesn’t even want to go to this university, does he? He can just not apply. 

“Let me see,” Bob says, coming in and looking over Jack’s shoulder. “Are you sure you didn’t miss something?”

“Yes!” Jack snaps. “I checked like four times.” 

“Okay, breathe,” Bob says. “I’ll be a fresh set of eyes, eh?”

Jack nods, gritting his teeth. He’s annoyed at being told to breathe, but he recognizes that he’s not _really_ angry at his dad, and it would just be unproductive to yell at him even though he wants to. He’s growing as a person or whatever. 

Bob doesn’t find an empty field either, but when he clicks the submit button it bumps them back to the same page with the ‘incomplete’ error at the top. 

“I’m going to murder it,” Jack says. 

“I’ll hide the body,” Bob mutters. “What else can we do, save all these and try again in a new browser or something?” 

Jack scowls. “I already had to re-enter all the information once because it crashed and lost it.”

“Okay, so that’s not the best option,” Bob says. “I don’t know what else to do.” 

“Set it on fire?” Jack suggests. “Tell it my references are aliens from Venus?”

“Tempting,” Bob says dryly. Jack snorts, and that sets them both off laughing.

Alicia appears a moment later and observes them from the doorway. “Just what is so amusing that I can hear you clear across the house?” 

“I can’t get this stupid application to submit,” Jack says, mostly calm now except for the occasional snicker.

“Pretty sure the devil invented it,” Bob says. 

“Huh,” Alicia says, coming in and studying the screen. “Is there a help line to call? What does the error say?” 

It turns out the error suggests deselecting and then reselecting all the drop-down fields, so they do that. It still doesn’t work, though, so Alicia takes it upon herself to find the number for and actually call the university’s IT services, who suggest that they try uploading the files Jack had attached in a different file format.

“He says to try compressing them,” Alicia says.

“You can… compress a file? How do you compress a file?” Jack asks, and then he has to spend the next fifteen minutes with a very cheerful guy in his ear instructing him on how to create a compressed file folder.

“It worked,” Jack says, kind of blown away when the screen _finally_ changes into the fourth and final step of the application process.

“Sick!” IT-guy-Trevor says. “Should I stay on the line with you until you do the last step?” 

“Yeah, please,” Jack says. It’s the simplest part—entering his credit card information to pay the application fee—but he doesn’t trust this system. It works, of course, and Jack makes sure to thank Trevor profusely before hanging up.

“What’s up next?” Alicia asks. “Maybe we’ll stick around in case you need to troubleshoot the next application as well.”

Jack draws a line through the last university on his list and stares down at it. “That… was actually the last one.” 

“Really?” Bob asks. 

“Really,” Jack confirms.

“Oh wow,” Alicia says. “You’re really doing this, huh? College.” 

Jack can’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah.” 

“I guess all we have left to do is wait,” Bob says. 

“Yep,” Jack agrees. It’s a weird feeling, knowing his applications are out there in the hands of universities, waiting for them to make a decision that’ll play a part in impacting the next four years of his life. It’s even weirder knowing he can’t do a thing about it now. His parents are looking at him with proud expressions that are not unlike the ones they had when he won the Memorial Cup. It’s unnerving. Jack feels like he’s reached a point where he really can’t turn back now. 

It’s a good thing he doesn’t think he would want to, anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

**From:** Kent Parson (hockeyking90xxx@hotmail.com)  
 **To:** Jack Zimmermann (jzimmermann@live.com)  
 **Subject:** (no subject)

Hi Jack,

There are a lot of things I want to say to you. A lot of them aren’t nice. Some of them are. I’ll try to not actually send the first kind to you. My therapist tells me I have to make it clear that I don’t expect a response from you, so: I don’t expect a response from you. (breaking the rules a bit, i really fucking want one. that’s just me being honest. sorry.)

First, I’m sorry for being a jerk. I was just worried about you and angry with you and upset that you didn’t seem to care. i recognize that these are excuses but they’re true. i thought i was fine and you were just the one fucking me up, but i guess i had a lot to work through on my own (say thanks to your friend for suggesting i get some help, i guess), so i kind of get that you did too. probz worse than me. sorry. i hope you’re getting help if you need it. i’m sorry if reading this makes anything worse for you, but i guess i also kind of hope that it's having some kind of effect on you, that i still matter to you at all. if i'm being honest.

I miss you. That’s what all this shit boils down to. what we had, that was good. i know we never talked about it and i guess that was the problem or at least part of it, since i guess you had a lot more going on, but it/you meant a lot to me. not just playing hockey with you, even though fuck i miss that. you’re important to me and it hurts that you don’t seem to feel the same about me. You obviously don’t have to. I just need to be clear about my own feelings. i’m sorry, i know that might seem selfish. i never said i wasn’t.

i’m sorry for what i said to you in april. i’m sorry for showing up at all, i should’ve known better, but i was really fucked up and exhausted and angry that we didn’t make the playoffs and i wasn’t thinking straight. i’m mostly sorry for insulting what you’ve been doing. coaching is great. i wish you were here with me, in the NHL, but i think you get that because you wish you were here too. maybe not with me, but at least in the NHL. but i hope a little part of you wishes you were doing this all with me. you thought we were good together too, right? It didn’t work out how we wanted, but maybe this is better? it just kills me to think that you’ve given up. you deserve better. but as long as you’re happy, i guess that’s all that matters.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. Like I said, I know not to expect a response from you, and I won’t be mad if nothing ever shows up in my inbox, but it would be nice to hear from you.

Have a good life,  
Parse

—

Jack doesn’t forget about Kent’s email at all—he just does his best to put it out of his mind and focus on other things. Once his college applications are done, though, he suddenly has a lot less to occupy himself with. He wants to stick with his resolve to move on, but he knows he’s only kidding himself. If he doesn’t look, he’ll always wonder.

He reads it right before a therapy session and is immensely glad he did. He’s almost late because he reads it about four times, and it means the first thing he says to Julie is, “I read the email Kent sent me,” instead of a proper greeting, but she’s seen and heard worse from him.

“Okay,” she says calmly. “What did he say?”

“I—” Jack hesitates. “He apologized.” All the sorrys are what has him reeling the most.

“For?” Julie asks, and Jack laughs, startling himself.

“Fair question, I guess,” he says. “It was a long list. Can I get you to read it?” He gestures at Julie’s computer, and she nods. Jack brings it up for her and sits back on the couch while she reads it. He drags the afghan down off the back of it and pulls it over his lap, fiddling nervously with the edge of it. 

“All right,” Julie says when she’s done, turning back to him. “Is there anything in particular that you want to talk about?” 

Jack doesn’t know. He wants to tell Julie he’s not sure, but he knows she’ll just ask him to think about it, so he keeps his mouth shut to save them both the trouble. There was so much in the email that he doesn’t know where to begin. He doesn’t even really knows how he feels about any of it. He’s not angry with Kent, he can tell that much, but he’s not exactly happy with him, either. He’s mostly confused. 

“I think, um,” he starts after a moment, “the most surprising thing was that he has a therapist now?” 

“Why is that surprising?” Julie asks.

“He’s never been the type to ask for help,” Jack says. “And honestly, I didn’t know he needed it.” 

“Well, he told you that you avoiding him upset him even before that email, didn’t he?” Julie points out. “And playing in the NHL is stressful for anybody, I’m sure.”

“I guess so,” Jack agrees. 

“He referenced your friend telling him to find help,” Julie says. “Do you know what that was about?” 

Jack winces. “Yeah—when Cyrille answered my phone and talked to him back in May, she told him that he needed help.”

“Do you think he believed her, then?” 

“No,” Jack says. Kent has too much pride for that. “I think he probably, uh… he probably tried to prove her wrong.” He laughs. “I’m guessing that didn’t go as well as he planned.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Julie’s face. “No, it appears not,” she agrees. “It sounds like it’s doing him some good, wouldn’t you say? It must have taken a lot of strength to send you that email and admit he was wrong.” 

Jack nods. “I guess, yeah.” 

“Do you think he was sincere?” Julie asks.

Jack takes a minute, staring down at the afghan and considering. “I think so,” he says slowly. “He defended himself a lot, but I, um, think he meant to be genuinely apologetic, like maybe he understands how he made me feel more than he did before?” He scowls, remembering. “Oh—that part where he says he knows I’d rather be in the NHL, though, that pisses me off. That’s him just assuming I’m still the same as I used to be.”

“And you’re not?” Julie asks. 

“No,” Jack says. He’s not the same fucked up version of himself who only cared about the NHL as he was in juniors, and he’s glad of it. He’s come a long way since then. 

“You wouldn’t rather be in the NHL right now?” 

Jack frowns. “No,” he says. “I have a plan for that. I’m good coaching the boys for now.” 

Julie smiles at him. “You were insisting you’re a failure for not being drafted first overall and immediately playing in the NHL not that long ago,” she says. 

“Oh, um,” Jack says. It still stings, hearing his failure spelled out like that, but it’s not so visceral a feeling. He has more distance from it now. “Well, I guess—some guys don’t get drafted at all, eh? And I did. So I should be grateful.”

“Sure,” Julie agrees. “And you should be proud of what you have done, right?” 

Jack nods. 

“So,” Julie says after a pause, “do you think you’re going to reply to Kent’s email?” 

Jack stares at the afghan again. It’s a truly awful combination of colours. “I think maybe… he deserves a response? You were right that it had to take a lot for him to send that, and he seemed to really want me to respond…” 

“He also said he didn’t expect you to,” Julie reminds him. “And you shouldn’t feel obligated just because you think he wants a response. I think you should only reply if you really want to talk to him.”

Jack nods. “I think—I do? But I’m also not sure if I should—it’s been almost a month since he sent it. Maybe he’s given up and I should let him move on.”

“Maybe,” Julie allows. “But do you know Kent to be the kind of person who gives up?” 

Jack shakes his head. That much is obvious to anyone who’s ever met Kent.

“I think if you have something to say he’d be glad to hear it.”

“I don’t know if I do,” Jack admits. 

“That’s fine as well,” Julie says. “You have time to think about it.” 

—

Jack finds himself opening a reply to Kent almost every time he has his laptop out, he never types more than a couple words before erasing them again. He feels so awkward and clunky about it. Kent had been absolutely heartfelt—Jack keeps getting stuck on the line where Kent said Jack is important to him—and Jack doesn’t know how to adequately return the favour. He half-wishes they’d talked about it way back when they were actually—well, they were never dating, but. It’s no use thinking about that now. They were emotionally-stunted teenagers, and they can’t take what they did or didn’t do back. 

Jack wants to reply, he just still feels like that stupid teenager every time he goes to try, and he hates it. The longer he goes without responding, the more he feels like he may as well just not. 

Even in the throes of indecision, life goes on. Jack still hasn’t missed a scheduled Conquérants event since he started, even when Coach Leclair attempts to excuse him from a practice on the grounds that he deserves a break and the boys will be working mostly with Cyrille anyway. 

He’s at one such practice just before Remembrance Day. Jack’s off to the side while half the boys work on their shot with Coach Leclair and the other half go through a skating drill with Cyrille. 

Most of the boys are talking and taking every opportunity to chirp each other, but Jack notices Harts on the other side of the rink, listlessly slapshotting pucks into the boards with no apparent regard for the location of the net. The frustration and separation from the rest of the kids unfortunately isn’t new for him, but ignoring what he’s supposed to be doing in practice is. 

Jack manages to catch Cyrille’s eye on her next lap and tilts his head to indicate Harts. She slows down, letting the boys get ahead of her, and they both watch as Harts winds up and hits another puck wide of the net. She raises her eyebrows at Jack, and Jack shrugs. Her look turns more questioning, and she gestures first to herself and then to Jack. Jack recognizes it as a question and gestures to himself in answer. He can be the one who talks to Harts. 

He waits until the kids switch groups before he skates over to Harts. “Hey,” he says, “wanna come talk to me?” 

Beneath his face mask, Harts frowns. “Am I in trouble?” he asks, stepping off the ice before Jack. Coach Leclair skates by, catching Jack’s eye and nodding when Jack waves and indicates that they’ll just be a minute. 

“No,” Jack says, leading Harts to a quieter spot near the dressing room. “You just seem upset, and I wanted to know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Harts looks away, yanking on his helmet straps and pulling it off. His hair sticks up in straight blonde tufts that Jack would laugh at if Harts didn’t look so broken up. “It’s not a big deal,” Harts mumbles, the high-pitch of his voice completely giving him away.

“Tell me anyway?” Jack asks. 

Harts shakes his head, still refusing to make eye contact. Jack waits, and it barely takes a minute before Harts is saying, “I failed my math test.”

“Oh,” Jack says. “Do you—”

“I’m _good_ at math,” Harts interrupts. “Or at least—I used to be.”

One failed test might explain today’s behaviour, but it doesn’t explain a pattern of it. “What happened?” Jack asks carefully. 

Harts bites his lip. “My mom usually helps with my homework, but my dad’s sick and my mom is always working, so she never has time, and I don’t—” He chokes up, his eyes obviously filled with tears, and Jack wants to punch someone in the face. He can’t physically hurt Harts’ situation, though, and he forces himself to relax his hands.

“Hey, Hartley,” he says softly, “it’ll be all right.”

“When?” Harts asks angrily, wiping tears off his face.

“I don’t know,” Jack tells him honestly, trying to think fast. “It sucks right now, I know. Does your teacher know why you’re not doing well anymore?” 

Harts shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says, sniffing loudly. “She keeps looking disappointed when she hands things back.” 

“Well, there’s something you can fix,” Jack says. He hesitates, then puts what he hopes is a comforting hand on Harts’ shoulder. He doesn’t shake it off, so maybe it works. “If she knows you need extra help and you’re not just slacking, she can help with that, right?” 

“I guess,” Harts says. He’s still sniffling, but he doesn’t seem to be crying as much. 

“And hey—I’ll write down my number for you, and you can call me anytime, would that help? I can’t promise I’m any good at math, but…”

Harts nods. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks, Coach Z.”

“Anytime,” Jack says, patting Harts’ shoulder. “You ready to go back out there?” 

“In a minute,” Harts says, and then he hugs Jack. Jack hugs back automatically and tries not to make a surprised noise when the helmet Harts is holding hits him in the back. “Sorry,” Harts says into Jack’s chest.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Jack assures him. Having a kid cry on him isn’t exactly the most glamorous part of his job, but when Harts detaches himself and decidedly skates back out onto the ice, greeting Letty with a grin and a shrug when he asks where he went, Jack thinks that it’s probably the most rewarding. 

—

Normally when Jack goes to bed, he’s out like a light and doesn’t stir until his alarm beeps in the morning, but lately he can’t get to sleep. It’s a sign that he needs to make a decision about Kent’s email already, but knowing he needs to and being able to do it are two very different things. 

He gives up and flips over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He has Kent’s email essentially memorized at this point, and he keeps composing fragments of a reply in his head. They’re the same things he always tries to type out and ends up giving up on because he sounds stupid, though, and lying awake thinking about it isn’t getting him anywhere.

He glances over at his clock radio. It’s just after eleven—early yet, if you’re at all a night owl, which Jack isn’t. Cyrille is, though. He wonders what she would think of him obsessing over the email, and then he abruptly realizes that he could actually ask her. He hasn’t told her anything about it, worried about how she might react, but that’s clearly not doing him any good. What he needs is some perspective, and there’s no one he trusts more to provide it than Cyrille. 

Jack rolls out of bed and turns on his lamp so he can see to grab his phone from where it was plugged in to charge. He calls Cyrille before he can second-guess or talk himself out of it, and he sits down on the edge of his bed and toes at the carpet nervously while he listens to it ringing. 

“Jack?” Cyrille answers. She doesn’t sound like he’d woken her up, which is a relief even though he hadn’t thought she would be sleeping. 

“Hey,” Jack says.

“You okay?” she asks. “You’re up late.” 

“Ah, yeah,” he says. “I’m fine. Are you busy? I should have texted.”

“Nah, I’m not busy,” Cyrille says. “Just screwing around on the Internet instead of doing anything productive. What’s up?” 

“So, um,” Jack starts, “I never told you this, but Kent emailed me.” 

“He did what?” Cyrille asks with a bite in her tone that makes Jack wince. This is exactly why he didn’t bring it up to her before—he was afraid she’d get angry at Kent and wasn’t sure that he really wanted her to.

“Sent me an email,” Jack repeats, then continues on quickly. “It was actually really—nice? Like, I don’t know, he was a bit defensive, but he mostly just apologized a lot.”

Cyrille is quiet for a moment, then asks, “He apologized?”

“Yeah, for showing up in April and for harassing me and all of that. He seemed to really mean it.”

“Huh, well, okay, if you think so. You know him better than I do.” She pauses. “What’s the problem that’s got you calling so late, then?” 

“I don’t know if I should reply,” Jack says. It’s not quite his problem, but it’s an easier place to start than trying to get across everything he’s been thinking.

“Nah,” Cyrille says immediately. “Let him stew.”

“He sent the email in September, though,” Jack says. 

“Oh, so you think he’s stewed long enough,” Cyrille says, tone teasing. “That’s fair, I suppose, if you really do want to reply, which it sounds like you do. Am I right?”

Sometimes Julie and Cyrille sound too similar for Jack’s liking. “I think I do,” he admits. “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea. Like… is it just going to make everything worse?” 

“Couldn’t tell you,” Cyrille says apologetically. 

Jack groans and lies back on his bed. “What would the independent woman do?”

Cyrille starts laughing. “Oh my God, okay, um,” she says through her giggles. Jack snickers, unable to stop himself. “She would probably think, like, what would you regret more in ten years? Replying or not replying?”

Jack stops laughing. When she puts it like that, the choice seems clear. In ten years, Jack wants to be in the NHL, and with any luck Kent will still be there. Jack doesn’t want there to be this thing hanging between them. He doesn’t want to be hung up on Kent Parson for the rest of his life. 

“And the independent woman would know that if he turns out to still be a jerk, she can go back to ignoring him,” Cyrille adds. She sounds a little too cheerful about that idea, but Jack’s not going to call her out on it.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I think I’d regret not replying.”

“Okay,” Cyrille says. “Do you need help figuring out what to say? I’m sure I can come up with some real zingers.” 

Jack thinks about all the things he’s tried to type—unfinished sentences about how he’s sorry too, fragments that don’t sound sincere at all. “Maybe I shouldn’t email,” he says abruptly.

“Hey, what! I thought we just decided you should?” 

“Yeah, but anything I write sounds stupid. I’m not—good at this writing thing.”

“That’s not true,” Cyrille says. “I read your college application essays, those were good. Even the more personal ones.”

Jack sighs. “It’s not the same,” he complains.

“Now you’re just whining,” Cyrille tells him. He makes a noise of protest even though she’s right. “But okay, if you really don’t think you can sound sincere or whatever, what if you asked him to Skype or something?”

It’s a more appealing thought than Jack would have predicted. “Do you think he’d go for that?”

Cyrille laughs. “I don’t know, Jack. Did he call you non-stop for weeks even after you made it clear you didn’t want to talk?”

Jack rolls his eyes at his ceiling. “Okay, sorry, I deserved that.” 

“Yep,” Cyrille says. “But honestly, just email him and ask. It’s not going to hurt.”

Jack isn’t so sure about that. “Okay,” he says anyway. He has to do _something_. “I will.”

“Good,” Cyrille says. “Now, since I have you on the phone already, let me tell you about this dumb article I’m reading. Unless you’re going to sleep?” 

“No, I’m fine,” Jack says. “I want to hear about it.”

“Okay, so,” Cyrille starts, and Jack settles into his bed to listen. 

—

Jack emails Kent early the next morning to ask if he wants to Skype. He doesn't put anything other than the question in the email—he doesn't even sign it because he can't decide whether to put 'Jack' or 'Zimms'. 

Kent's reply is a prompt yes, accompanied by his schedule and a request for Jack to let him know what time is good for him. Jack picks a time, half expecting Kent to change his mind in the interim, and doesn't really know what to do when Kent agrees right away. 

He can't stop thinking about it. He'd given himself a good week even though their schedules had matched up sooner, and he's regretting it now. It feels like there's something weighing down on his chest all the time, a lump of panic in the back of his throat when he lets himself consider for too long. 

It's just—uncharted territory. He knows, sort of, what he wants to say to Kent, but he obviously doesn't know how Kent is going to respond. The whole thing might just be a setup for another fight, and the thought of it makes Jack want to cancel and never leave his bedroom ever again for good measure. 

That’s not an option, though. He has a hockey team to help coach, and so he soldiers on.

They’re playing the Olympiques on a Friday night. They’re tied at zero after a pretty uneventful first period, and Jack is on dressing room monitoring duty during intermission. He’s doing an idle scan of the room when he realizes that Sheepy is nowhere to be seen and hasn’t been for a few minutes.

“Anyone seen Sheepy?” he asks over the talking in the room, and everyone either shrugs or shakes their heads in answer. Jack frowns and glances outside the dressing room. Sheepy’s not in the hallway, either, and Jack slips out to look for him. 

He’s not out by the bench, either, and Jack wanders for a bit until he thinks to check the public washrooms. Sure enough, when he pushes open the door, he finds it empty except for Sheepy, who is standing by the sinks with paper towel clutched in his hands. He looks completely panicked. 

“Dennis?” Jack asks cautiously. 

“Go away,” Sheepy says, voice breaking. 

“I don’t think so, buddy,” Jack says, keeping his voice soft. He feels like he should be panicking, too, and can’t quite put his finger on why he’s not. “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” 

Sheepy shoves the paper towel in the garbage only to get himself another bunch of it. Jack can see his hands shaking when he turns on the tap and gets the paper towel wet, scrubbing his face with it. Jack steps closer, trying to decide whether Sheepy’s the kind of kid who wouldn’t mind a hand on his shoulder, and Sheepy shies away. “Don’t,” he snaps.

That answers that question. Jack steps away again, holding his hands up. “I won’t touch you,” he assures him. “I just want to know what happened.”

“It’s nothing,” Sheepy insists, even as his rapid breathing gives him away. “I’m fine, just—”

“You’re not fine,” Jack says. 

“I _am_ ,” Sheepy chokes out, throwing his paper towel on the floor.

Jack lets that slide. “Breathe with me, dude, come on,” he says, demonstrating deep, calming breaths. It takes a moment, but Sheepy joins in, his deep breaths shaky at first before he gets into the rhythm of it. Jack keeps on breathing with him for a while after he’s fairly sure Sheepy’s stopped panicking. 

“Sorry,” Sheepy mutters after a minute, picking up the paper towel he’d thrown on the floor and putting it in the garbage. 

“It’s fine,” Jack says. “You up to telling me what’s wrong now?” 

Sheepy makes a face. “There was—I fell trying to get the puck away from one of the other guys.”

“Okay,” Jack says in what he hopes is an encouraging manner. He vaguely recalls that happening, but Sheepy got right back up and kept skating, so it hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time. 

“It reminded me of last season,” Sheepy says. “When I fell and sprained my ankle. And now I keep thinking about it happening again, and I have to go back out there and play, and I…” He blows his nose loudly into the paper towel and then looks up at Jack. “I’m scared,” he adds quietly.

“That’s okay,” Jack says immediately. “I get scared to play for reasons way more dumb than that. But you can’t let your fear get the best of you, right? You know you’re a good skater, you know that most of the time you’re going to get right back up if you fall.”

Sheepy is nodding along. “Why do I get scared even though I know all that?” 

Jack wishes he knew the answer to that one. “It’s just scary,” he says, shrugging. “But you can do it, hey?”

“Yeah, okay,” Sheepy says.

Jack checks his watch; there’s only a couple minutes left in intermission. “Fistbump before you have to get back out there?” he asks. 

Sheepy snorts a laugh and bumps Jack’s fist with his own quickly. A moment later, he’s jetting out of the bathroom, back to the fast pace he usually operates at. Jack follows behind him, relieved that his pep talk worked.

It takes until after the game before Jack realizes why he knew what to say right away. Not only does he have plenty of experience with bringing himself down from a panic attack, but he talked Bergey down from one around this time last year—he hadn’t known what to say then, but apparently he retained what worked enough to use it again. 

That’s the case with most things: once Jack does them once, they only get easier. It follows, then, that even if his talk with Kent is a disaster… he can keep trying, and maybe everything between them will get easier to deal with, too.

—

Jack is online and ready a good hour before he needs to be, Kent’s chat window open and all. The last message is from December 2008, a single IM from Kent that reads, ‘u here?’, followed by a three hour call. Jack doesn’t remember it at all, though he remembers spending most of the few days break before World Juniors in a haze induced by too much anxiety medication, missing Kent even though they’d seen each other just days before. He wishes he could recall what they talked about. He’s sure it was easier than this is going to be.

Kent’s icon doesn’t turn green until a minute before the scheduled time, and Jack stares at it, heart pounding. His laptop starts ringing, and he jumps and fumbles to hit accept.

It takes a bit, but the video eventually resolves from pixels into Kent’s face. Jack’s first thought is that he look tired, too tired for so near the beginning of the season. His hair is perfectly coiffed how he used to do it for special events, but there are dark circles under his eyes. Jack can’t see anything behind him except what looks like leather—a couch, probably.

“Jack?” Kent says, and Jack’s traitorous heart skips a beat.

“Hi,” he says, waving awkwardly. “Sorry if this is—I thought I could respond to your email better by talking, but if you just want to hear me out and then hang up, it’s whatever.” It’s not whatever, but he says it anyway. 

Kent laughs, a tiny, almost-mocking thing that Jack knows all too well. “No,” he says, “it’s good to see you. I didn’t think you were going to reply at all, so. I’m listening.” 

Jack nods. He takes a deep breath. “I accept your apology,” he starts. Something in Kent’s expression flickers, but Jack doesn’t know what it is, and he’s back to being blank-faced almost immediately. “And I want to offer my own. For worrying you, and for keeping secrets, and…” He trails off and shrugs, staring down at his desk instead of looking at Kent.

“I accept yours, too,” Kent says quickly, and Jack looks up. Kent is half-smiling, nearly his teasing expression Jack remembers all too well. “Is that all?”

Jack shakes his head. He’d thought the next part would be hard to say, but Kent looking so familiar on the screen makes it easy. “You were important to me, too,” he says. “Still are, I guess. I wanted you to know… that. So. That’s all.”

Kent looks stunned. “Wow,” he says, practically stammering. “I…” The video jumps, and from one frame to the next, Kent is beaming. “Glad you realize what a stud I am. I was worried for a bit there.”

Jack snorts. He could be mad at Kent for making a joke of it, but the response is just so _him_ that he can’t. In any case, a moment later, Kent softens his voice and says, “Thanks,” and that’s almost too much to withstand. Jack just shrugs in response.

There’s a long silence, both of them just looking at each other, and eventually Jack breaks it with, “What now?” He’s not sure whether he means for this call or for forever. He’ll go with whatever Kent thinks he means.

He doesn’t get to find out, though, because right as Kent opens his mouth, there’s a loud meowing noise. Jack blinks in confusion, and then there’s a blur of black and grey taking up the screen.

“Purrs, no,” Kent says from behind the fluff, shoving the cat away. It’s undeterred, crawling right back onto Kent’s chest and meowing again.

“Did you get a cat?” Jack asks. “Is your cat’s name _Purrs_?” 

Kent, when he gets the cat mostly out of his face, looks pained, and even through the shitty connection Jack can tell that he’s blushing. “Yeah, uh,” he says, “Jack, meet Kit Purrson. She’s a little brat.”

Jack bursts out laughing. “You named your cat after yourself,” he wheezes. “You named your cat a pun of your name. Oh my God.”

“What,” Kent says defensively, “are you telling me you’re surprised?” 

Jack has to take a minute to get ahold of himself before he can respond. “Maybe about the cat,” he says. “I didn’t know you liked them. But the name? Nope. That’s… very you.” He snickers. “Literally.”

“Yeah, well,” Kent says. Purrson has settled down now, idly kneading her paws into Kent's chest. “I thought getting my own apartment would be good, but it turns out it’s pretty lonely. Purrson here keeps me company.”

“You live alone?” Jack asks, surprised.

“Yeah,” Kent says. “Stayed with one of the guys for a while last year, but I moved out in January.” 

Jack vaguely recalls getting picture messages around that time that he only glanced at. He thought Kent was moving in with another rookie or something, not out on his own. “Cool,” he says.

Kent nods. “Do you want to see my view? Everyone always does. It’s pretty sick.” 

“Sure,” Jack agrees.

“Okay,” Kent says. “Get off, Purrs.” She meows loudly in protest, but otherwise allows Kent to lift her off of him and onto the floor. Then he stands, bringing the laptop with him and turning the video into one big blur. When it resolves again, it’s to what’s obviously outside the window: city buildings that Jack is fairly sure make up the Las Vegas Strip. “Pretty good, right?” Kent’s disembodied voice asks.

“Pretty cool,” Jack agrees. He wonders if he would have a view like that if it had been him or if he’d made a different choice after being picked fifth round, and then he resolutely pushes it from his mind. It wasn’t and he didn’t, so it doesn’t matter.

The video goes blurry again as Kent sits down, this time at his kitchen table, if the stove Jack can glimpse behind him is any indication. “So, uh,” Kent says, “what’s new with you?”

Jack shrugs. “I just… go to work, that’s all.”

“Cool, cool,” Kent says. “Pretty much same.”

Jack wants to laugh at that. As if Kent playing in the NHL is on the same level as Jack assistant coaching a Pee-Wee team. Just a job. Just work. Jack feels nauseous. 

He should ask more, find out how the Aces are doing, see if Kent likes his teammates, but he abruptly can’t deal with this anymore. “Hey,” he says instead, “I’ve gotta go.”

“What? But we—”

“It was good talking to you,” Jack says over Kent’s protests. “Really. But I have to go, okay?”

There’s silence, Kent biting his lower lip and Jack feeling incredibly guilty, and then, “Fine,” Kent says. “Thanks for calling.”

“Of course, yeah,” Jack says. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Kent says. He’s not moving to hang up, and it takes Jack a horribly long minute to figure out how to do it himself. When the screen finally brings up the ‘call ended’ message, Jack sits back in his chair and breathes a sigh of relief.

Considering how that could’ve gone, it actually wasn’t too bad, despite the awkward ending. It definitely wasn’t the unmitigated disaster Jack had been picturing. He’s pretty damn proud of himself.

He leans forward again to sign out of Skype and is surprised when he sees that Kent sent him an IM.

“dont be a stranger”, it says.

Jack stares at it for a good minute before he responds, “i wont.” 

—

Jack makes good on his promise; he and Kent start texting sporadically after their Skype call. It’s just mundane things, like Jack telling Kent what the boys get up to and Kent sending pictures of locker room pranks. Jack likes it because as long as he doesn’t think too hard about it, it’s easy. Jack likes things to be easy.

It ends up being a bit of a respite from the hell that organizing the annual holiday party turns into. Every time they think they have something set in stone, something happens to ruin it: the caterers fall through, the concession workers they ask to work instead have to back out, and just when Jack thinks it’s resolved by booking a restaurant to have it at instead of the arena, the restaurant calls them and says they’ve accidentally double booked.

Coach Leclair is about ready to call it quits on the holiday party entirely. It’s not really essential or required, just traditional, and Jack can see how the hassle isn’t worth it. But—since it’s his last year coaching, at least for awhile… he doesn’t want to miss out on any part of the experience.

It’s that sentimental thought that has him volunteering his own house for the party. Normally he would scarcely invite a whole crowd of people to his home, but it seems like a good last-ditch-effort plan, and he’s saying it before he can second guess himself. Coach Leclair and Cyrille tentatively agree at first, but they both keep asking Jack if he’s sure. Jack checks with his parents, and once they’re overly enthusiastic about it over the phone, Coach Leclair and Cyrille stop asking and start planning instead. 

They have barely a week to do it, but they manage by using a lot of lists and delegating tasks where possible. Cyrille recruits a decoration committee from the team, and Chicken takes it to the extreme. It looks like a particularly festive glitter bomb went off in Jack’s house when the committee is done with it.

Luck finally wins out, and they have good weather that day—fairly cold, but not snowing. Jack gets his dad to flood the backyard rink, and it becomes the main event for the kids. 

Most of the parents seem to prefer to be inside, the reason for which becomes clear when Jack watches Garden’s father go back for the hot chocolate Bob is serving three times in the span of half an hour, trying and failing to converse without swallowing his tongue. Bob bears the attention with practiced grace that makes Jack’s throat tighten slightly with familiar anxiety at the idea of that being him. It’s been awhile since he thought about that. 

He goes outside and starts taking pictures with his phone to distract himself. He gets a pretty good one of Chicken and Lion talking, heads bent together, just before they skate over to Ruby and shove snow down the back of his jacket. It turns into an out-and-out snowball fight, made slightly more dangerous by the fact that they’re all on skates. Jack makes sure to keep an eye on them, but he more or less leaves them to it for now.

After a moment, he thinks to text Kent the picture, captioning it, _‘trouble makers’_ , and then following that up with an explanation of what happened.

It’s not long before Kent texts back, first with a chirp about how bad the picture quality is because of Jack’s old phone, and then, ‘ _hahahaha, kinda like us ya?’’_

 _‘I nvr started any trouble,_ ’ Jack responds immediately. ‘ _It was all u.’_

 _‘lies!!!_ ’ Kent replies, and Jack snorts at his phone. 

Kent’s comparison reminds him of when he watched that game tape and realized Lion played the way Kent does—he hasn’t thought of that in ages. In retrospect, it wasn’t untrue, but now that Jack’s known Lion for a year and a half, it’s clear how very _not_ like Kent he is. For all that Lion is a loud kid and can make hockey look effortless, he doesn’t have Kent’s swagger or propensity to make jokes or steady leadership in the room, and Kent doesn’t have Lion’s patience. 

It’s a relief that Jack is able to see Lion for himself rather than for all the ways he reflects Kent, but he also feels bad for all the times he didn’t quite give Lion the attention he could have. He hasn’t done that recently, and Jack doesn’t think Lion’s suffered from it at all, but it still rankles. He could have been better. 

“Hey,” Cyrille says, making Jack jump when she approaches from behind him. “You look pretty solemn out here.”

Jack shrugs. “Nah,” he says, mentally shaking it off. There’s no use dwelling on it, anyway. He can’t change the past. “Just spacing out.” 

Cyrille bumps her shoulder gently into his. “Well, snap out of it,” she teases. “Are you having fun?”

Jack is about to respond with an affirmative, but before he can, he gets hit right in the chest by an explosion of snow. 

“Oops!” Saver yells at him, not looking the least bit repentant. The snowball fight has halted, all the boys staring in Jack’s direction, waiting.

Jack deliberately makes a show of slowly brushing off his chest, debating whether to laugh it off, make them stop fighting, or join in. It’s seeing Letty slowly reaching for another of a small stockpile of snowballs he has at the edge of the ice that decides it for him.

He bends down and gathers a bunch of snow. “You better watch it, Saver!” he calls, and the boys immediately scatter, shrieking and laughing. Jack can’t help but laugh himself, even as he fails miserably at hitting any of them with a snowball. Cyrille unceremoniously shoves snow down his back, and that makes Jack laugh too. Given the choice, he wouldn’t change a thing that got him here.

—

Jack brings Julie a present in their last session before he and his parents leave for the holidays (they’re back to the usual and going to Pittsburgh this year, despite how many jokes they all make about sand angels). He knows Julie doesn’t _need_ a present, seeing as she gets paid to deal with him weekly, but he’d been shopping for everyone else and stumbled across a nice paperweight with a sailboat suspended inside it that he thought she might like.

“To match your painting,” he says once she’s opened the little gift bag, gesturing at the seascape in question. 

“It’s lovely, Jack, thank you,” Julie says, giving him a small smile. She puts the paperweight down on her desk. “Are you ready for your vacation?”

Jack shrugs. “Yeah, it’ll be great to see my family again,” he says. “Thanksgiving feels like a long time ago.”

“Not too stressful?” Julie asks. 

“No, it should be okay,” Jack says. Sure, it would be nice to have a really quiet Christmas at home, but he doesn’t mind seeing his family. It’ll be nice to have something concrete to talk about when they ask what his plans are. 

“Good. Remember that you can call me if it’s not, all right?” Jack nods, and Julie continues on with, “Anything on your mind? Boys playing well?” 

“The season’s going great, actually,” Jack says. “It’s been a lot of wins and a lot of good play to go along with. Good atmosphere in the room. Kids are happy.”

“Glad to hear it,” Julie says, genuinely sounding it. 

Jack hesitates. He knows that Julie would think nothing of it if he continued on talking about the boys—he sometimes talks team dynamics and plays through with her—but he does have something else he should probably address before they don’t talk for two weeks and he’s left alone to stew.

“So, uh,” he starts carefully, “Kent and I got each other Christmas presents.”

Julie nods. “Was that planned?” 

“No,” Jack says. “It was actually kind of funny, I got him this, uh, fancy watch when I was shopping? Because I remembered him saying he’s always wanted one, and I felt like since he could buy one himself now it wouldn’t be a big deal for me to get it for him. And then I felt weird about it, because even though we’ve been talking, I wasn’t sure we were at Christmas present level?”

“Understandable,” Julie says.

“Right. So I didn’t do anything about it, but then a couple days ago he told me on Skype that he got me something, and it was okay if I didn’t want it or something, he just wanted to,” Jack continues. “Which I, uh, I thought that was a nice way to word it? So I told him I got him the watch, and it turns out he got all the boys, Cyrille, Coach Leclair, and me tickets to a Habs game? He thought it was kind of stupid, since I can get those, like, free because of my dad, but it was still nice.”

Julie is nodding. “It sounds nice,” she agrees. “What did he think of the watch?” 

“Oh, right,” Jack says. “I don’t think he got it in the mail yet, but I showed him over the video chat, and he seemed pretty happy? It was the right brand, at least, I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten it right before he told me. He said he hadn’t gotten himself one yet.” 

“That’s thoughtful of you, then,” Julie says. “Of both of you, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “It feels kind of weird. I don’t think we really got each other Christmas presents before? And I’m still not sure what we’re really… doing.”

“Well, it seems like you’re friends,” Julie says. “Wouldn’t you say?”

Jack frowns. He realized that was the entire point of talking again, but he didn’t know that just a few texts about nothing that important was all it took for them to be friends again. He’s not opposed, he thinks he’s even _glad_ , but it’s still hard to wrap his head around. 

“I guess so,” he says. 

“You don’t seem happy,” Julie observes.

Jack sighs. Of course she wouldn’t let him get away with that. “It’s just weird,” he says again. “I guess I don’t have much experience with just being friends. Especially not with Kent.” They were a lot of things to each other, but it was never just friends—there was always more to it. 

“Do you think it’s a good kind of weird?” Julie asks. 

“Yeah,” Jack says without thinking about it. He gets a strange urge to take it back, but it’s not a lie, so he doesn’t. 

“Well then,” Julie says. “I’m glad Kent’s something you can feel positive about now. I’m sure you still have things to work through, but it’s better than the way he was weighing on you before. Yes?”

Jack nods. “Yes,” he agrees. “It’s better.”

—

It’s a couple days before Christmas, and Jack is sitting on his grandparents’ couch, Maggie squished next to him because Zoe, Arthur, _and_ Aunt Hailey are all on the couch as well. Jack’s parents are on the loveseat, his grandparents in their armchairs, and Uncle Scott has been relegated to the floor after a failed attempt to sit on his wife and children. They’re all quietly watching _A Christmas Carol_ on TV, and Jack is just glad that no one is making a ruckus anymore.

Right as Scrooge is being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, Jack’s phone starts to vibrate in the pocket of his jeans. He thinks it’s a text at first, but then it continues, and when he digs it out, the number doesn’t have a name attached. It’s a Québec area code, though, and Maggie is peering curiously at him, so Jack answers.

“Hello?”

“Coach Z?” a young voice asks. “It’s Harts.”

“Harts?” Jack asks, immediately alarmed, already trying to figure out how he can help with whatever’s happened from Pittsburgh. “Are you—”

“MERRY CHRISTMAS, COACH Z,” a bunch of boys chorus, and then there’s distinct giggling on the other end of the line. 

Jack breathes a slow sigh of relief. “Merry Christmas to all of you,” he says. “Who’s there?” 

“Me!” a distinctly unhelpful voice says. 

“That was Letty,” Harts says. “There’s also Nurple, Fury, Ruby, Nants, and Saver.”

A voice that’s distinctly Ruby’s says, “We’re calling to add an emotionally satisfying end to this chapter.”

“Coach Z!” Saver—at least, Jack thinks it’s him—says over the end of Ruby’s statement. “Are you having a good break?” 

“Yes,” Jack says. “You all sound like you are, too.”

“We just wanted to tell you to have a good time,” Nurple says. There’s muffled talking, and then he adds, “And that we hope you get good presents.”

“Sorry if I wasn’t supposed to share your number,” Harts says apologetically. One of the other boys makes a loud scoffing noise. 

“No,” Jack says, “it’s okay, it was nice to hear from you. Stay out of trouble, eh?”

“Whatever!” Letty says, and Jack snorts. 

“We will,” Harts says. “Bye, Coach Z.”

“Bye, boys,” Jack says, hanging up. When he looks up, everyone is looking at him. “Uh. Sorry.” 

“I didn’t understand all that,” Uncle Scott says, “but I think I got the Merry Christmas bit.”

“Who was _that_?” Maggie asks. 

“Your team?” Bob asks before Jack can answer. 

Jack nods. “I gave Hartley my number in case of emergency,” he explains. “He was having a hard time at home. But I guess he had a few of the team over and they decided to call me or something.”

There’s understanding nods all round. “It sounds like those boys really love you,” Grandpa Jack says after a moment. “You’re doing some good work.” 

Jack can’t help the grin that spreads across his face, and he ducks his head to hide it. “They’re not so bad themselves,” he says. 

A year ago he might have denied that he was doing anything well at all, but now… it’s good to feel appreciated and to have the knowledge that he deserves it. The boys wanted him to get good presents, and Jack’s sure that, come Christmas morning, he will, but really, the best gift is knowing that he’s made an impression on his kids. The job might have started out as just something to do, but it’s so much more than that now, and Jack is so, so thankful for it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Kent Parson**  
party cat  
[ _image description_ : a selfie of kent holding an unimpressed purrson. the cat is wearing a party hat.]  
11:42 PM | 12-31-10

 **Jack**  
Happy new year! Also stop torturing ur cat  
12:01 AM | 01-01-11

 **Kent Parson**  
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D  
12:01 AM | 01-01-11

— 

With the new year comes rain that immediately turns to snow and doesn’t stop falling for days. Jack can’t deny he likes it: every morning he wakes up and everything is freshly white again, yet another new beginning.

He starts collecting official envelopes from colleges instead of just the same old junk mail he’s been getting since he registered for the SAT. He leaves them unopened in a stack on his desk. He can deal with them later.

Jack is in his room after dinner reading a book when his dad pokes his head in. “Hey,” he says, waving a medium-sized envelope at Jack. “Did you forget to check the mail earlier?”

Jack lowers his book to look at Bob. “Um, yeah,” he says. “I must have. Just put it over there.” He gestures at his desk.

“This is quite the stack,” Bob says, picking the envelopes up and flipping through them. “You ever going to open any of these?”

“Yeah,” Jack says.

Bob furrows his eyebrows. “So what’s stopping you from doing it now?”

“Uh…” Jack tries to think of a reason and comes up empty. “I don’t… know.”

“Well, do you want to open them?” Bob asks.

Jack shrugs. If he can’t come up with a reason not to, he might as well, really. “I guess so.”

“Hold on,” Bob says, “I’ll get Mom.”

Jack doesn’t really want a fuss made over this, but he doesn’t want to deny his parents the chance to experience it with him either. They’ve been so enthusiastic about it that it doesn’t seem fair. “I’ll bring them all out to the living room,” Jack says. “Just give me a minute.”

“Sure thing,” Bob agrees, already heading out the door.

Jack takes his time gathering the envelopes. It’s a promising stack, mostly thick oversized envelopes. Jack’s heart is beating wildly as he carries them to the living room anyway. 

“Okay,” he says, dropping them all on the coffee table in front of his parents. “Let’s all open them together. It’ll be faster.” 

“You’re sure?” Alicia asks.

Jack nods, and they all take an envelope from the stack. “Here goes,” Bob says, and they start opening.

They’re all acceptances, and they’ve all included scholarship offers from their hockey programs as well. His parents look like they might well cry. Jack prays that they don’t. 

“A lot of choice ahead of you,” Bob says. “How many more have you got to wait for?”

Jack shrugs. “Uh, a few.”

Bob nods. “Almost makes you wish schools drafted you, eh?” 

Jack snorts a laugh. “It’d be easier,” he agrees, because it’s undoubtedly true. “But I like that I get to pick.” He’s actually kind of excited to weigh all the options and see how they stack up. 

“Of course,” Alicia says. “I’m holding out for McGill, myself.” 

Jack rolls his eyes and smiles at her. “Maybe,” he says. “We’ll see.” 

—

Jack has a Skype call time set up with Kent for that Saturday. The Aces are on the road, playing a matinee game, but Kent insisted he would be free afterward, and Jack didn’t want to argue about it. The Kent that greets him when he answers the call looks tired, his hair still damp, but he’s smiling.

“Good game?” Jack asks. 

Kent shrugs. “Won,” he says in a nonchalant tone that doesn’t fool Jack one bit. “Feels good to finally be doing that.”

“Congrats,” Jack says. Then, because he can practically see Kent fidgeting, he adds, “Did you score?” 

Kent beams. “Yeah, it was a beauty, Jack,” he says. “Jeff made this ridiculous pass through traffic and I went top shelf for the go-ahead. They never caught up after that.” 

Kent’s smile is infectious. “Awesome,” Jack says. “Maybe I’ll look up a highlight video.” He still doesn’t particularly want to follow the NHL, but he could watch one goal. 

“Let me know if you do,” Kent says. “How was your day?” 

Jack shrugs. “Haven’t done too much,” he says. He shifts in his desk chair and glances at his pile of acceptance letters. “Been, um…” He hesitates. “Did I tell you that I applied to colleges?” He’s pretty sure he never did, because he finished the whole process before they started talking again, and he hasn’t exactly been jumping at chances to bring it up. He phrases it as a question anyway, as if that will make it come as less of a shock.

It doesn’t. Kent’s eyebrows immediately furrow. “You… what?” 

“I’m going to go to university in the fall,” Jack says, deliberately not looking at the screen. “Play hockey there, you know?” 

“What the fuck?” Kent says, voice biting. Jack cringes, glancing at Kent and then away again. “Why would you do that?” 

Jack opens his mouth to reply, but Kent keeps talking. 

“That’s _not_ going to be good for your development, and you know it,” he says. “You played major junior, dude, and the Aces _drafted_ you. They’d sign you if you asked!”

“I don’t—” Jack tries. He just wants Kent to be quiet for a moment, to listen to Jack explain why he can’t take the NHL right now and try to understand all the reasons why college is Jack’s best option. 

“You might have to play in the minors for a bit, but you’re amazing, you’d get called up in no time,” Kent continues over Jack’s attempts to talk, and the thought makes Jack feel like he’s choking, blood rushing in his ears. “We could be playing with each other by November.”

It’s obvious that Kent’s had this idea in his head for a while, and that just pisses Jack off. It’s not like he expected Kent to be thrilled that he was going to college, but a little support after the initial shock instead of this _rant_ would have been nice. “That’s a nice little idea you have,” Jack says, unable to keep the sneer out of his voice. “Too bad it’s not going to happen.” 

“Why the fuck not?” Kent asks. “What does college have that’s so special?” 

“A lot of things!” Jack snaps, too upset to actually think of anything.

“Bullshit,” Kent says. “I don’t think there’s anything at all. You’re just scared.”

“I do _not_ care what you think, Kent,” Jack says, fuming. He wishes it was completely the truth, but he knows he wouldn’t be this angry if it was. “I’m doing this for me, and if you don’t get that, you can go fuck yourself.” 

“Fine!” Kent says. “You clearly don’t miss me as much as I miss you, so whatever. Just do whatever you want.” 

Jack stares at him for a long moment, taking in Kent’s bright red cheeks and obstinate expression. He can’t believe Kent isn’t even _trying_ to understand and that he’d try to guilt trip Jack so obviously. The worst part is that he doesn’t know what led him to believe he’d ever get a better response than this. 

“Whatever,” Jack echoes, and then he closes his laptop entirely instead of hanging up. He can hear Kent’s surprised gasp, and then the whirring of his laptop’s fan stops as it shuts off, and everything is quiet. 

Jack puts his head down on his desk and concentrates on breathing steadily. He stays like that for a long time.

—

The fight puts Jack in a perpetual bad mood. He feels bad for yelling at Kent, but he’s hardly going to be the one to apologize first—it was Kent that was being irrational in the first place. Julie doesn’t try to argue, even in a roundabout way, when he tells her that, so he feels pretty justified.

Being justified doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking suck, though. He _liked_ the way things were going. Now he just keeps reaching for his phone to tell Kent something and then remembering all over again that Kent apparently just cares if Jack is going to play with him again, not if Jack is at all happy. 

He does his best not to think about it. The boys have a rare weekday game the Tuesday after the fight, and Coach Leclair gives Ruby the start for the first time. It’s a pretty open-and-shut game—literally, because the Conquérants shut the Lions out 6-0. 

The dressing room is in a total uproar after the game—the kids are blasting some pop song about fireworks, singing and dancing along, and every so often they start chanting Ruby’s name. Their enthusiasm is enough to actually cheer Jack up. 

Somewhere between getting hugged by his teammates and changing out of his gear, Ruby comes over to Jack and hugs him without saying anything. Jack hugs him back, patting his shoulder. “You were great out there,” he tells him again, having already said so when he fistbumped him as he was leaving the ice.

“Thanks,” Ruby says, voice muffled by Jack’s coat. He leans his head back to look up at Jack, still hugging him. “This is gonna be the only time I play, because of the whole Ruby Tuesday and the good mood thing, but it was really great.”

“What?” Jack asks, confused. “Don’t say that, Ruby, I’m sure you’ll get to play again.” 

Ruby lets go of Jack and shrugs. “I know my purpose in the narrative,” he says cheerfully before skipping off. Jack watches him go, still stumped. At least he’s happy, Jack supposes. That’s what matters in the end.

He goes to bed right away when he gets home even though it’s early even for him. He’s tired, and Ruby’s got him thinking about life purposes and happy endings, neither of which are topics he wants to dwell on for too long.

—

When he gets around to checking his email on Friday morning, there’s one from Kent, subject line “Sorry”, sent around 3 AM—so that’s midnight where Kent is right now. Later than he probably should have been up regardless, not that it’s any of Jack’s business. 

Jack closes his email, stares at his desktop background for a moment, and then gets up. He starts cleaning his room—not that it’s at all dirty, really, but it’s not like a bit of dusting ever goes awry. He straightens his bookshelves, puts some things in drawers, and then goes for broke and strips his bed. He takes his sheets down to the laundry room, stuffs them in the washer, and starts it before retreating back to his bedroom.

His laptop is still sitting on his desk, the power button pulsing softly in its sleep. It isn’t that Jack thinks the email is going to be bad, exactly, it’s just that it’s definitely going to say _something_ , and he doesn’t know if he can deal with whatever it is. 

Avoiding it won’t make it go away, though. He sits down, wakes his laptop up, and determinedly opens his email again. He takes a deep breath and clicks on Kent’s email. 

A genuine apology is exactly what he wants from Kent, and the first few lines of the email don’t disappoint. It’s basically just Kent saying three different ways that he’s sorry for fucking up, and this time he doesn’t even say his therapist told him to say so. 

_“You gotta do what u gotta do, and i wouldn’t want you to do something that’s not good for you,”_ reads the second paragraph of the email. _“So here’s what I should of said instead of being an asshole: how’d you decide that? What schools are you looking at?”_

There’s no way this wasn’t at least a _bit_ coached by Kent’s therapist, but Jack knows Kent would never send an email he didn’t actually mean. He has too much pride for that. Jack’s exactly the same way.

 _“im hoping this doesnt change what we just got back,_ ” says the end of the email, and that… that’s all Kent. There isn’t even a signature after that, like he had to send the email before he erased his sincere feelings. 

Jack’s glad he did. It’s reassuring to know that even though Kent seems to be trying to get back to exactly what they were before rather than create something new, he cares enough that he’ll use his words to try and fix it. Not using their words is undoubtedly what they screwed up the worst before. That, more than anything, is what has Jack hitting the button to reply. 

_“Apology accepted. For the record, I miss you too,”_ Jack starts, because that’s the part of their fight that’s been weighing on him the most. He doesn’t want Kent to think he doesn’t care. He stares at his blinking cursor for a minute, but ultimately decides that’s enough feelings. The rest of the email is details about his college decision making process that he sincerely hopes Kent actually _does_ want to read, because otherwise he’s probably going to be bored out of his mind. 

Judging by how soon after he sends the email Kent calls him—later that day, around the time Jack thinks Kent would have finished practice—and the follow-up questions Kent asks, he does and did want to know. Jack’s chest feels tight, but for once when it comes to Kent, it’s with warmth rather than anxiety. 

—

Their application for the international tournament in Québec City is approved again—not that Jack had any doubts, since the Conquérants are undoubtedly an even better team than last year. It’s significantly less stressful to get everything for it organized now that Jack’s done it once before. He makes sure to carefully document the process because he knows that, with him leaving for university and Cyrille graduating, someone new will be doing it next year. That stings more than he thought it would, and he pushes it to the back of his mind. 

After all the preparations are put into place, the actual trip itself sneaks up on him. Before he knows it, they’re loading the kids onto the bus and getting ready to face the top Pee-Wee talent again. 

This time, not only do they play early on the first day of the tournament, but they win that game 4-2—and Chicken scores a hat trick and attempts to look modest about it after. He doesn’t really succeed, but that’s okay—Jack figures he should be proud of his achievement, and he tells him so. Chicken hugs him, and Jack hugs back right away. 

It’s a good way to start it off. Jack thinks it might make for a struggle to get the boys to settle at night, but Cyrille rolls her eyes at him. “We’ve been here before,” she says. “We know the secret: work ‘em hard, stuff ‘em full of food, and _then_ send them to bed.”

She’s not wrong. It works well. 

They make it all the way to the semi-finals. It isn’t easy—there are a few nail biters along the way, including a game with a particularly memorable second intermission where Coach Leclair gives a deathly calm speech in which he says, “You just gotta push yourselves out there,” no less than ten times. The kids must have been listening, because they come back from their 2-0 deficit to win 3-2. Rebel damn near stands on his head for twenty minutes. Jack thinks Coach Leclair might be a little choked up after; he knows that he is.

He sits at a table with Tiger and Shakes at dinner that night. Tiger’s got homework spread out in front of him while Shakes stares intently at a handheld device—one of those gaming ones that Jack can never tell apart—in between bites of food.

Halfway through, Tiger is spacing out, looking in Jack’s direction. “Having fun?” Jack asks when he’s been doing it for awhile. 

Tiger jumps, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “We’re awesome.” 

“Sure are,” Jack agrees. “Nervous for the game?” 

Tiger shrugs and glances at Shakes, who makes an expression Jack can’t interpret. Tiger apparently can though, because he says, “Shakes isn’t worried. He thinks Chicken will drag us to a win if he has to play all sixty minutes.”

Jack snorts. “Nobody is playing all sixty minutes,” he says, though he doesn’t doubt for a second that Chicken would try.

“Obviously,” Tiger says, wrinkling his nose. Jack hides his grin by taking a sip of his water.

The semi-final game is a gritty one. Both teams keep drawing penalties. Jack is afraid the boys might completely forget how to play with both teams at full strength if this carries on. 

They send Cyrille to the dressing room after a scoreless first period to make the disappointed eyes she’s so good at and tell the team that they need to stop getting penalties. The kids are suspiciously quiet; not a one of them looks remorseful.

“I think there’s something more going on than just aggressive hockey,” Jack says quietly to Coach Leclair and Cyrille as the boys are filing back out to the bench.

“Agreed,” says Coach Leclair grimly as Cyrille nods. “But I’m not sure what.”

The second period is an improvement. There’s an uneventful thirteen minutes—some good scoring chances on both sides, but nothing to show for it, and then there’s a tangle in front of the net and Letty manages to slap the puck in. It’s not a pretty goal, but it counts.

They send in the first line after that, and Tiger very nearly scores—would have, Jack thinks, if it wasn’t for one of the large defencemen on the other team creaming him into the boards. He gets a penalty for it, so at least the Conquérants are on the powerplay, but Jack has to stop himself from literally spitting in disgust.

“You okay?” Cyrille asks Tiger when he comes off the ice.

“All good,” Tiger says. 

“Fuck that guy,” Monty says from beside him.

“Don’t test my patience, Dumont,” Coach Leclair says. Monty shrugs, unrepentant. 

They enter the third with their one-goal lead still intact. They double-checked Tiger for injury during intermission, and other than the annoyed eye roll he gave them, he seemed fine. He spent the rest of intermission talking quietly to Shakes in the corner. 

Jack doesn’t think anything of it—at least, he doesn’t until Shakes and Tiger wind up back on the ice at the same time as the kid who hit Tiger. The kid is still covering Tiger, and Jack is keeping a close eye on them—close enough that he sees right away when the kid goes to try to poke check the puck away from Tiger and trips him.

It looks like an accident, honestly, but then the kid obviously laughs, and Shakes is there the next moment, dropping his gloves and full-on punching the kid in the face. The entire arena seems to inhale in surprise at once, and then there’s an explosion of noise, the crowd yelling and sticks being banged against the boards. Jack can barely believe his eyes—Shakes, the quietest and most unassuming eleven-year-old Jack has ever met, punching someone in the face.

The other kid punches back, so both of them get five for fighting. Shakes gets another two for instigation and a game misconduct. 

The Conquérants hang on for the 1-0 win despite missing one of their best defencemen. Rebel gets first star for his shut-out and Jack won’t be surprised if he gets tournament MVP, especially if they win in the final.

With how tired he is already and then having to deal with Shakes after the game—Jack has never repeated that fighting is never the right thing to do so many times in his life—Jack doesn’t fully register that they made it to the _final_ game until they’re gathering for practice the next day. 

In a matter of days, his boys could win the whole thing, Jack realizes, and then he has to excuse himself to the bathroom to stand in a stall and try not to think too hard about whether the lump in his throat is anxiety, happiness, or a certain kind of mourning for everything he’s accomplished with these kids and how, after this, he’ll be walking away from it.

—

Making it to the final means unavoidable press attention. Coach Leclair’s given a few quotes already, but after the memorable disaster with the reporter last year, Cyrille and Coach Leclair have been extra careful to keep Jack out of the spotlight. Jack goes along with it easily, all too happy to sidestep the media. He’s not the story here anyway. 

It doesn’t stop reporters from being curious, though, because nothing ever does. Jack considers it just a matter of time—and sure enough, when he and Cyrille are getting drinks from a vending machine during a break the day before the final game, a tall woman with a press pass around her neck approaches them. 

Cyrille immediately goes on the defensive, her eyes narrowing even as the woman is saying, “Sorry to disturb you, feel free to tell me off if it’s a bad time, but I’m Catherine Mills from—”

“Sorry,” Cyrille interrupts, sounding anything but. “We don’t—”

“Actually,” Jack says as Catherine is already nodding and stepping away from them, “I’ll answer a couple questions if you like. We’ve got a few minutes.” 

Cyrille looks at him in alarm, and Jack puts a reassuring hand on her arm. This reporter seems considerate, and Jack would rather answer a few questions for one person now than get swamped later. It’s a risk, maybe, setting an expectation, but the press demands things even without expectations. Jack tries not to begrudge them for it; it is their job, after all. 

“Are you sure?” Catherine asks, already flipping on her recorder, and when Jack nods, wastes no more time before asking, “How does it feel to have helped coach the Conquérants to the final?” 

Jack smiles. This is an easy one. “It’s really great,” he says. “They’ve worked hard for it, and I’m very proud of them.” 

“You played for the Conquérants when you were younger, is that right?” Jack nods, and Catherine continues, “And you’ve been assistant coach for two years now, yes?” Jack can practically hear the _‘since right after your breakdown and subsequent drop in the draft’_ that she isn’t adding onto the end and appreciates that she’s letting it go unsaid.

“Right,” he says. 

“Planning on coming back next year?” she asks. 

It’s an obvious question, one Jack was expecting, but his throat tightens and he hesitates; Cyrille must feel him tense up, because she steps closer to and a little bit in front of Jack, glaring at Catherine.

“Or are you onto bigger things?” Catherine says, unperturbed, and Jack schools his face rather than scowling at her. He refuses to let the implications of that stand. 

“I’ve found coaching to be very rewarding, especially with Coach Leclair as a mentor and colleague,” he says, keeping his voice steady even though he’s a combination of angry and anxious, “and especially with the great kids I’ve met both this year and last. I definitely don’t consider this to be a small part of my life at all.”

“Of course,” Catherine says, nodding. “What would you say is the biggest difference between the team we saw at the tournament last year and the one you’ve brought this time?” 

Jack tries, with limited success, to relax. Catherine’s clearly picked up on his tension and dropped the line of questioning about what’s next for him, but Jack can’t shake the thought that she might cycle back around to it. He doesn’t want to have to tell her he’s leaving before he’s even told the kids. He can barely remember how to string words together to answer the question she actually asked. 

“I think we’ve consistently been a hard-working team,” he manages to say, grasping for the comfort of his well-worn media clichés and twisting them for his purpose. “The boys just go out there and do their best, and we put a lot of emphasis on making sure they’re having fun. I think that helps a lot.” 

Catherine looks like her interest has been piqued, and Jack isn’t sure why until she asks, “Has playing hockey always been about having fun for you?”

“Yes,” Jack says sharply, even as he remembers all the times getting on the ice felt like a chore, like something he had to do to prove himself worthy of anything and everything. He knows it was his mental illness talking then, and he doesn’t ever want to go back to that. “It’s a game. Sorry, Catherine, I think that’s all I have time for.”

“No problem,” Catherine says, turning her recorder off. “Thank you so much. Good luck to your boys in the final.” 

“Thank you,” Jack echoes, automatically holding out his hand. She shakes it, and he turns away, Cyrille following him closely.

“You handled that so well,” Cyrille murmurs to him when they’re a fair distance away.

“Did I?” Jack asks. He’s genuinely not sure. It feels like a blur already, like something that happened to him a long time ago.

Cyrille nods. “You did. You good?” 

“I think so,” Jack says. He’s surprised that he actually means it. “Not my favourite thing, but I’m okay.” 

“Let’s not make you do that again,” Cyrille suggests. “I know you wanted to, but really, they can get quotes about the boys from Coach Leclair. It’s not about you, Mr. Zimmermann.”

Jack snorts at her teasing tone of voice. “Thanks,” he says, completely genuine. 

Cyrille shrugs. “Shouldn’t torture yourself,” she says lightly. 

“I’m going to have to do media in college,” Jack realizes. “At least some.” 

Cyrille waves a hand, smiling so Jack knows she’s joking. “Ages from now,” she says. “And you’ll handle it well, just like you did that one.”

Jack smiles at her. “Thanks,” he says again. It hadn’t been his intention, exactly, but it does feel good to know that he can still do this without flying apart completely. He’ll take that reassurance and run with it. 

—

The final game starts off fast. They’re playing against a team from America called the Stars; they were at the tournament the previous year as well and got knocked out earlier than the Conquérants did. Coach Leclair made sure to get the boys to watch one of their games earlier in the tournament, and so they were expecting them to come out hard and maintain that pace. Expecting isn’t quite the same as experiencing, though, and by the end of the first period, the Conquérants have spent most of their time in the defensive zone and are down 1-0.

All the boys that were on the ice when the Stars scored are visibly upset with themselves, and Jack nudges Rebel’s leg once he’s sitting down in the dressing room. “Hey,” he says, loud enough that the other boys along the bench can hear, “wasn’t your fault, okay? They’re playing hard, they got a lot of shots on net, one of them was bound to get in.” Rebel nods, and Jack claps him on the shoulder before looking out at the room and raising his voice further. “This isn’t about _any_ one player. You’ve all got to step it up and hit them harder.”

“Well said, Jack,” Coach Leclair says. “I don’t want to see my team in the wrong zone anymore, you hear me? Our defencemen are getting _tired_ , boys! Offence, offence, offence.” 

Coach Leclair’s using his hardass voice, the one that isn’t quite shouting but certainly isn’t nice, and he continues on critiquing their play, pointing out where they failed in the first and what they can do to not do it again. By the time he’s done, the whiteboard is covered in no longer intelligible marks and the boys have a certain set to their faces that Jack likes the look of as they file back out to the bench. 

Sure enough, they’ve got a lot more fire when they get back on the ice. Sheepy scores off a great feed from Chicken only a few minutes in, and that sparks them all up even more. Harts follows it up with one right off a faceoff, and then they give up a few good chances that Rebel, thankfully, saves. 

“Come _on_ ,” Jack mutters, then repeats it louder. It doesn’t visibly help, the same back-and-forth play continuing. It’s an improvement over being totally dominated, but it’s nerve wracking as hell. Jack paces a bit, then forces himself to stand still. 

With just barely a over a minute left in the period, Gibs sends a puck flying into the offensive zone in a way that has Jack wincing. Harts hauls ass and just barely smacks it away from a defender. Letty picks it up and executes some pretty impressive stickhandling that ends in him scoring, bar down, just like that. The deafening noise of the arena’s reaction to it is absolutely warranted. Jack’s never seen any of them play quite so well. 

The dressing room is loud as hell during the intermission, the boys all yelling congratulations and giving mock demonstrations of what the final play had looked like. They quiet down when Coach Leclair walks in and looks around silently, all of them looking wary. Coach Leclair lets the kids sweat for a moment, dramatically pointing his finger at all of them, before breaking into a grin. “You,” he says, “all of you. More of that. You’ve got this.” 

“They’ll be angry,” Jack warns them. “You’ve gotta want it more.” 

“Oh, we want it,” Chicken says determinedly. “Right, boys?” 

“Right!” they chorus, and Jack doesn’t bother to hide his grin. 

He wasn’t wrong; the Stars do battle hard in the third. They score one early, an easy giveaway that has everyone shifting, unsettled, but in retrospect Jack thinks it’s exactly what they needed. They tighten up their defence even more and play cautiously, but not overly so, and Rebel doesn’t let another one through.

With two minutes to go, the score 3-2 in favour of the Conquérants, the Stars pull their goalie. Even with the extra attacker crowding up the ice, Chicken works some hockey magic to break free of everyone else, tearing down the ice and flipping the puck into the empty net like the easiest thing in the world. The grin on his face as he slams into the end boards, arms raised, makes Jack’s heart feel too big for his chest.

They win the whole goddamn thing. Jack’s on the verge of happy tears from the time the boys flood the ice and hug each other in one ecstatic mass and all through the award ceremony where Rebel gets the MVP award he so richly deserves. He fist bumps all of them as they return to the dressing room, medals looped around their necks, and laughs when Chicken launches himself into Jack’s arms and nearly takes out his eye with his medal. 

“So, who wants pizza?” Cyrille asks the dressing room. The resulting cheer of approval from the boys makes Jack’s ears ring. He wipes a tear off his cheek with the sleeve of his jacket and beams. 

—

After the crazy busyness of the tournament and the high of the boys winning, Jack crashes hard when he gets home to Montréal. It’s actually a relief, being at home and seeing his parents, visiting Julie, settling back into regular life. By all logical reason, he should be feeling good. Unfortunately and infuriatingly, emotions don’t listen to logic. 

He has a particularly bad day where he wakes up feeling like shit and forces himself to get up, take his meds, work out, and eat breakfast anyway, Then, since there’s nothing scheduled for the team that day and therefore nowhere he has to be, he crawls back into bed. He feels comforted by his blankets, for a moment, like they offer him some sort of real protection from the world, and then he just feels stupid.

It fucking sucks that he has nowhere to be, and it feels like even if he did have to go to the rink, it wouldn’t really be going anywhere. It’s stupid to think like that, obviously, for a million reasons he knows any other day, but today he can’t seem to internalize it. It’s easier to just lie here and feel sorry for himself. 

His phone vibrates from where he left it on his nightstand, and he picks it up to find a text from Kent—not too surprising, since they’ve still been talking even while they were both busy. It’s just a short explanation of a prank one of the rookies tried to pull, and normally Jack would think it was funny, but it’s kind of making him want to throw up, and he’s not sure why. 

He should probably just ignore it. Nothing good can come from him talking to Kent right now. His jealousy is simmering too close to the surface. 

He even puts his phone down, but then he starts worrying that _Kent_ might worry, even though he definitely wouldn’t for at least a couple hours, and then he thinks about Kent trying to text him later and his stomach twists. He’s picking up his phone before he can think anymore.

 _‘Haha_ ,’ he types. ‘ _Can’t talk today just so u know_.’ He stares at it for a full minute before giving up and sending it. 

Kent’s response is prompt. ‘ _Y not? Everything ok?’_

Of course he would ask that. Jack can’t even begin to figure out how to explain. He wishes he could just ignore Kent—he has a totally logical reason, since he already said he couldn’t talk—but anxiety gnaws at him until he sends, _‘U wouldn’t understand.’_

 _‘Try me?’_ Kent replies. Jack puts his pillow over his face. He really, really does not want to deal with this, so he doesn’t. That works for the next five minutes before Kent texts him again, this time with _‘are you ok?_ ’ It also works for the twenty minutes after that before Kent actually calls him. Against his better judgement, Jack moves the pillow and answers the call. He doesn’t say anything.

“Jack?” Kent asks, confused, after a long silence.

“Yeah,” Jack says.

“Oh, thank God,” Kent says, his sigh of relief audible. “Okay, I’ll hang up now, I was just—”

“Checking on me?” Jack says blandly. He hates that Kent even feels the _need_ to do such a thing, like he doesn’t trust Jack to be able to take care of himself. As if Jack hasn’t been doing a fairly good job of that for the past two years. As if the second everyone looks away, he’s going to break again. It’s terrifying because Jack feels like it’s probably true. 

Kent hesitates. “Yeah,” he says, and Jack seethes. “Are you… okay?” 

Jack wishes he could just say yes. “You wouldn’t understand,” Jack tells him again. 

“You could help me understand,” Kent says. He sounds endlessly and carefully patient, and it’s making Jack want to strangle him. 

“You _can’t_ understand,” Jack says. “You got everything you ever wanted.” 

Kent sucks in a breath. “That’s not—”

“True?” Jack sneers, unable to stop himself. “Fair? Guess what, Parse. Not much is fair.” 

“Why are you being like this?” Kent asks, and Jack snorts. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe because I’m—what was it you said? Spending all my time bumming around and playing with a bunch of children, right?”

"Listen, Zimms, just because you—" Kent stops himself and exhales roughly, then takes a couple audible deep breaths. Jack's mind is already coming up with another cutting comment, since that's all it seems to be good for today, but then Kent says, "You were right. Now's not a good time. I'm gonna hang up, call me when you want."

There’s abrupt empty silence. Jack keeps his phone pressed to his ear for a good minute. It feels like it’s the only thing even sort of holding him together; if Kent is still on the other end of the line, giving as good as he gets, Jack doesn’t have to be upset with himself. 

As it is, Kent isn’t there, and it’s Jack’s fault. He throws his phone to the floor and watches it skid across the carpet, coming to a stop safe and sound in the middle of the room. He wishes it broke. He wishes it would ring.

Jack rolls over and puts his pillow back over his head. He doesn’t know why he keeps fucking things up when he knows better. At this point, he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to stop. 

—

It takes a day at the rink and four history documentaries for Jack to start feeling like a semblance of himself again. It takes another day and two more documentaries before Jack stops hating himself for what he said to Kent enough to actually call him.

He takes the easy way out, sort of, by calling him on Friday night when he knows he’s on the ice. Kent’s phone goes straight to voicemail, just like Jack expected it to, and yet he still freezes when the tone beeps in his ear. “Uh,” he says eventually, “hey. It’s me. Jack. I just wanted to… I guess I owe you an apology. Um. Call me back if you want, I guess. Uh. Thanks, bye.”

Kent calls back right after the game. Jack can tell that he’s driving, the tell-tale ambiance of the road in the background. “Hey,” Kent says, voice cautious, and Jack hates it.

“Hi,” he says, fiddling with the edge of his blanket. “Got my message?” 

“Got your message,” Kent confirms. “You know, Zimms, we owe each other a lot of apologies, don’t we?” His tone is light now, almost teasing, and Jack’s not sure what to do with it.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “I guess we do.” 

“So what’s one more,” Kent says. “You know?” 

Jack nods even though Kent can’t see him. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.” 

“Anyway,” Kent says after a moment, “you would not _believe_ the bullshit this Seattle defenceman tried to pull in the game tonight. Are you ready for this?” 

“I—”

“Trick question, Zimms, there is _no_ being ready for this,” Kent says, and then he’s off, recounting how the d-man had blatantly cross-checked an Aces vet in the back of the head and then tried to argue his way out of it. Jack settles in to listen, making appreciative noises of shock and asking questions where it’s warranted. He can hear Kent getting home and thinks he’s going to say he has to go, but he doesn’t. Instead of ending, the conversation turns to other things, easy as that. 

—

“How’s the week since you got back been?” Julie asks, and Jack stifles a sigh and shrugs instead.

“Pretty good,” he says. “Bit of a rough patch, for some reason, but I think I’m mostly through it.”

“Do you want to talk about that?” Julie asks.

Normally Jack prefers to just forget the rough patches have happened, because they’re a fact of his life he just has to push through, but he’s actually kind of—not excited, exactly, but he wants to tell Julie about what happened with Kent and see what she thinks. It felt like a breakthrough to Jack, especially in retrospect, but he’s not sure if that’s just wishful thinking.

“I was a dick to Kent,” he starts, getting the worst part out of the way, and then he explains the details to her. “So, uh,” he concludes, trying to add his feelings, “I think I’m kind of… proud of how we worked it out? And I’m glad that a fight like that doesn’t totally ruin what we’ve built.”

Julie hums understandingly. “Do you think that’s because it means your illness won’t ruin it?” she asks.

Jack hadn’t been thinking of it quite like that, but she’s not wrong. “Yeah. I guess that’s why it felt like a breakthrough,” he says.

“If you think it’s a breakthrough, I think you’re right,” Julie says. “It’s about your mindset.”

“Right,” Jack agrees. “Because it’s how we approach things that really defines how they’re going to go.”

“For sure,” Julie says, smiling approvingly at him. “So, question: do you think brushing an incident like that off as another apology owed is going to be healthy in the long run?” 

Jack thinks about it. He can see what Julie’s getting at, but… “Not exactly,” he says, “because I don’t think that’s quite what we’re doing? It’s the same idea as how I deal with feeling shitty: try not to make it worse in the moment, acknowledge that it happened after, and then move on.”

Julie nods. “That makes sense,” she says. “I would make sure that Kent is thinking of it like that, too, you know? Talk it out.” 

“Sure,” Jack agrees automatically. He’s not positive he really wants to bring it up to Kent in such explicit terms, no matter how good an idea it might be, but it doesn’t hurt to say yes and at least think about it.

“I think it’s impressive how much you’ve grown,” Julie says, surprising Jack. “You and Kent, from what I know of him through you.”

Jack makes a face. “I don’t feel that much different,” he admits. “I get that I am, I know I have all this experience and things that I didn’t before, but sometimes I wake up and I just. I don’t know. I feel seventeen and stupid.”

“We all have those days,” Julie says. “It’s like a short story I read once. We’re all the product of the years we’ve lived through. I’m 36 now, and I’m also the year I was twenty and I temporarily dropped out of university because of the stress, and the year I turned thirty and didn’t quite remember how I got so old. So you’re nineteen, but you’re also the year you were three and learned to skate, and the year you were sixteen and terrified of leaving home to play hockey. So you don’t really feel older until you’ve had time to process everything. Are you following me?” 

Jack frowns. “I think so,” he says. “Like, skating is easy because I’ve done it for so long, but coping with my anxiety is harder because I learned how to do it recently. It’s kind of a practice makes perfect thing?” 

“More like a practice makes perfect ninety-nine percent of the time thing,” Julie says. She thinks for a moment, then says, “Some days you just keep falling down on the ice, right?” Jack nods. “That’s the part of you that’s still three.” 

“Oh,” Jack says. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Good,” Julie says. “So don’t discredit yourself or your progress, okay?” 

“Okay,” Jack agrees. There’s a comfortable silence for a moment, Julie twirling her pen and Jack wondering if the house plant in the corner is dead or not. 

“How are the college plans going?” Julie asks. “Got all your letters?” 

“Most of them,” Jack says. “I set up a few campus visits so I can go see what they’re like.” 

“That’s coming up soon?” Julie asks. 

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I, uh. March is going to be pretty busy.”

“Scary busy?” Julie asks.

Jack shrugs. “Might be. I think it’ll be good, though. Interesting, at least. Maybe I’ll even start getting excited.”

“We can only hope,” Julie says, smiling. Jack smiles back at her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Kent Parson**  
Dont disown me but its fuckin COLD up north  
[ _image description_ : a hotel parking lot from a high vantage point, cars covered in fresh snow]  
8:42 AM | 03-02-11

 **Jack**  
I think I have to when u say things like that in March.  
8:53 AM | 03-02-11

 **Kent Parson**  
nooooooooooooooooooooooo  
9:22 AM | 03-02-11

 **Jack**  
:)  
9:23 AM | 03-02-11

— 

If there’s one thing Jack knows about how he feels about his college plans, it’s that he’s not excited. He doesn’t quite know what he _is_ —he’d rather not label any negative emotions. He keeps thinking too much about how good he has it now and how bad doing something new could go. He knows it’s for the best—he made charts to make this decision, for fuck’s sake—but that doesn’t mean it’s fun.

He really is hoping that visiting colleges will remind him of all the reasons he _should_ be excited. His first official visit is to the University of Michigan on the first weekend of March, and he’s trying his best to be optimistic about it. Everyone he’s ever heard from thinks it’s a great school, and a lot of hockey players from there make it to the NHL, so it seems like a pretty good choice. 

His dad flies out with him and rents a car to drive to Ann Arbor. He keeps commenting on what a nice, fairly short flight it was and how close Jack would be to home. “But far enough that you’ve got room to breathe,” he says, shooting Jack a grin, and Jack tentatively smiles back.

They meet Coach Randleman, the head coach, bright and early the next morning. “It’s great to meet you, Jack,” he says, shaking Jack’s hand firmly. “And you, too, Mr. Zimmermann.”

“Please, call me Bob,” Bob says. 

“Only if you’ll call me Steve,” Coach Randleman says with a laugh. 

“I’ll be too busy being quiet and taking notes,” Bob tells him. “This is all about Jack.”

Jack tries not to squirm when they both look at him. “Of course, of course. So, I had you meet me at the rink because I figured we’d start off where it all happens,” Coach Randleman says. “The veritable home away from home, eh?” 

“Sure, yeah,” Jack agrees. 

“This way,” Coach Randleman says, gesturing for them to follow him, and then Jack is trailing after him, shaking hand after hand of assistant coaches and training staff and whoever else is there that Jack doesn’t process the names or titles of. It seems like a lot of people, but Michigan is a big school and they’re all nice enough, making jokes and telling Jack he would love it in Michigan, not to mention they would, of course, love to have him. Jack just nods. 

They get pawned off on a student after the arena tour with profuse assurances from Coach Randleman that he’ll catch up with them again later. Her name is Sarah, and she’s on the women’s hockey team. She’s also a history major, and she takes them to her Roman History class. Jack spends the first few minutes laughing at his father’s attempt to inconspicuously fit himself into a tiny desk-chair combo, but once he gets it together, the class is pretty interesting. 

During class is also when he really realizes how strange to be surrounded by so many Americans and, more significantly, English-speakers. It's obviously not a surprise, but Jack wasn’t expecting to feel a little out of place because of it. He does his best to shake it off and listen to the discussion.

It’s either fortunate or unfortunate that Sarah is the kind of student who likes to sit in the front row: unfortunate because it allows the entire class to realize just who is attending their class, and fortunate because Jack doesn’t notice until the end, when he stands up and most of the students are shooting him looks as they leave the room. A few brave ones come over and ask Bob for a signature.

“There have kind of been rumours around campus,” Sarah tells him on the way to the dining hall for lunch. “That you’d be here, I mean. I think people were taking bets.” 

“That seems weird,” Jack says weakly, unsure what else to say.

“Well, the hockey team is a big deal here,” Sarah says. “And so are you.”

Jack just shrugs instead of saying anything else.

They eat lunch at a table that seems to be a mix of people from the men’s and women’s hockey teams. A bunch of them start talking to Bob, asking him questions about the NHL that he seems happy enough to answer, and Jack is content to sit quietly. 

One of the guys doesn’t let that stand, sliding over to sit across from him and leaning practically all the way across the table to talk to him. “Hey, man,” he says. “I’m Mackenzie, the boys call me Mac.” 

“Jack,” he says in reply, offering a hand. Mac holds up a fist instead, and Jack bumps it. 

“So you’re looking to come here, huh,” Mac says. It’s not a question, so Jack doesn’t answer. “You totally should, man, that’d be sick as _fuck_. You’re totally the piece we need to really make a run for it in the Frozen Four.” 

Jack shrugs noncommittally. It’s flattering, sure, but it’s also a reminder that Mac knows what kind of player he is from watching him play in the Q, and that’s a reminder that Mac, along with everyone else, knows how badly he fucked up. They might not know the details, but they know it happened. Jack thinks it maybe makes it worse that none of them seem to care if he just comes and plays good hockey for them. It’s not like he wants people to pity him at all, but he doesn’t want _this_ , either. 

Mac leans in even closer, like he’s going to tell Jack a secret, except then he talks at a regular volume. “You’d be a total fuckin’ legend, too, dude,” he says. “Everyone loves the hockey team—free beer at every frat house, not to mention the _ladies._ ” 

“Cool,” Jack says, even though being a legend with unlimited beer and ladies at his disposal sounds like the exact opposite of what he wants. 

“Hell yeah it’s cool,” Mac says. “We could really use you, bro. Hope you like the rest of your visit enough to come back.” 

Jack nods. “Yeah,” he says. Thankfully, Mac starts talking to another guy on the team and leaves Jack alone. Not so thankfully, a girl immediately takes his place. “Hi!” she says. “I’m Naomi.”

“Hi,” Jack says. “Jack. Um, nice to meet you.”

“Way nicer to meet you,” Naomi says. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help but notice how cute your accent is! Do you guys speak French at home?”

“Uh,” Jack says, confused by both his accent being ‘cute’ and how obvious the answer to the question has to be. “Yeah, we do.” 

“That’s so cool,” Naomi says. 

Jack is saved from having to figure out a response to that by someone saying Naomi’s name and her turning to answer right away. He spends the rest of lunch contemplating all the reasons why it might be best to just go home, and then, in turn, all the reasons why he can’t quit now.

After lunch, Sarah hands them off to a volunteer who gives them a tour of the entire campus, pointing out all the regular places where students hang out and/or study. It’s definitely a nice place, though much larger than Jack was expecting. He looked at maps, but they really didn’t prepare him for the sheer size of the buildings and the distance between the different parts of the university.

Jack can’t really imagine himself as one of the students who clearly know exactly where they’re going and how to get there. After they walk past a girl curled up on a chair in the library, sleeping with a book propped open on her chest, Jack makes sure to ask their guide if he thinks there are good resources for students who are stressed.

“Sure, of course,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “There are counsellors and stuff in this last building I’m showing you. Or, well, really, I’m dropping you off here to talk to an academic advisor. They might actually know better than me?” He pauses, then adds, “And you’re an athlete, so I’m sure they’d do whatever to make you happy. Wouldn’t care if you were doing a lot of things as long as you play hockey.”

Jack frowns at that, but he doesn’t bother saying anything. The academic advisor mostly just tells him all the things he’d read about course requirements and the kinds of accommodations he would get as a student athlete. “What about as a student with mental health issues?” Jack asks point blank. 

The advisor blinks at him. “Absolutely,” she says. “Anything that’s affecting your hockey, your work, yourself—we have services that can help.” 

“Okay,” Jack says, “thank you.”

It’s not like he didn’t know that they wanted him to play hockey, but it’s starting to grate on him that it’s all anyone seems to be able to talk about. Sure, he’s a hockey player first and foremost, but he’s kind of been looking forward to being a student, too. Cyrille makes it sound pretty great, the middle of final exam hell notwithstanding. 

They head back to the arena after that to sit in on a practice. Jack finds himself watching the players with his coach’s eye—he keeps wanting to give them corrections and tips, though of course the corrections and tips are a little more advanced than he generally has to think about for his boys. It’s honestly the most exciting part of the day; they look pretty good out there, and when they scrimmage Jack can map out exactly how he could fit into the lineup. 

“What’d you think?” Coach Randleman asks him after. 

“Got a great team,” Jack says honestly. 

“Thank you,” Coach Randleman says. “They’re some good kids, they work hard. Be even greater with you with them, I suspect. Come on in to my office.” 

Jack follows him to his office and sits in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Bob takes the other one and sits back, hands folded. Coach Randleman sits down and looks at him. “I want to be really honest and upfront with you, Jack,” he says. “You’re at the top of my recruit list. When I was informed you were on the market, that wasn’t even a question in my mind.”

He pauses, looking expectant. “I’m honoured,” Jack says, unsure what Coach Randleman wants from him.

“I picture you as my top line centre,” Coach Randleman continues. “I know you haven’t played for a bit, but you’ve clearly been keeping in shape, and talent doesn’t just disappear. I believe you’re the spark this team needs to really compete, you with me?” 

“I understand,” Jack says carefully. 

“What other schools have you been looking at?” Coach Randleman asks, voice too casual to really be genuine.

Jack was expecting the question, warned by his obsessive research on the internet, but it stills trips him up for a second. “I’ve applied a bunch of places,” he manages to get out. “Looking at some Canadian schools, uh, McGill, New Brunswick, Alberta, as well as, um, Boston College, Samwell, Minnesota, and UND.” 

“You’re visiting them all?” Coach Randleman asks. “Any offers yet?” 

Jack nods. “That’s my plan,” he says, though this day has been wearing on for so long he’s starting to regret it. “No offers right now, but um. In any case, I really want to make an educated decision.”

Coach Randleman nods. “Of course. Just let me know what we can do for you, okay, Jack? Scholarships, special arrangements, whatever you need.” 

“Thank you,” Jack says. “And thank you for having me visit, as well. I had a good time.” It’s not _entirely_ a lie, at least. 

“Glad to hear it,” Coach Randleman says, pushing his chair back and standing. Jack hurries to join him, reaching out to shake his hand. “See you soon.”

Jack nods, waits for Coach Randleman and his dad to shake hands and exchange pleasantries, and then makes a beeline for the exit as soon as possible. It’s almost a physical relief to get off campus, the pressure Jack felt was so stifling. 

_Well_ , Jack thinks wryly to himself, _at least that’s one crossed off the list._ It’s not really a comfort. 

“I think that went fairly well, hm?” Bob says when they’re having dinner at a steakhouse across the street from their hotel. “It sure is beautiful here, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says. That much, at least, is true.

It’s not until the next morning, when they’re driving back to the airport, that Bob turns down the classic rock station they’ve been listening to and says, “You don’t want to go to UM, do you?” 

Jack frowns at him. “I—well. No,” he says. 

“Good,” Bob says firmly, shocking Jack so much that his jaw nearly literally drops. “I’ve been thinking about it, and that coach was very—I mean, top line centre? As a freshman coming off a two year hiatus? You’re a great player, Jack, absolutely worth the fuss, but I worry.”

Jack has no idea what to say to that. He thought his dad was excited about the idea of him being back to playing hockey like he should be, dominating and being declared the star of the show.

“You don’t have to be a superstar,” Bob says. “You know that, right? All I expect from you is for you to do whatever makes you happy.”

Jack bites his lip. “Okay,” he says. “Um. Thanks, Dad.” 

“You don’t have to go to college at all if you don’t want to,” Bob continues. “Or you could go to college and not even play hockey. Whatever you want.” 

“I want to play hockey,” Jack says. It comes out sounding affronted, and Bob laughs. 

“That sounds like my son,” he says, and for once it just sounds like something a fond father says, not the weight of a generation of expectation on Jack’s shoulders. “I just want to be sure you know it’s not a _requirement_.” 

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I get it.” And he really does. He wants to do this, but he wants to do it in a way that’s healthy for him. He’s left hoping that not everywhere is going to be like UM, because if they are, he’s going to seriously need to rethink his strategy. 

—

He gets a whole week doing normal things, but it feels like no time at all before he’s getting on another plane, this one to Boston. He’s by himself this time—he’s going to be visiting both Boston College and Samwell University, and his dad suggested that maybe he would draw less attention and be able to get a better read on the environment if he was on his own. It was a good point, but Jack still kind of wishes he wasn’t alone. 

His visit to Samwell is different even on paper—it’s not official because the school isn’t paying for any part of his trip, and it’s during a huge weekend event that they have for all their prospective students. Jack has meetings with the coach and other hockey staff set up, but otherwise he’s just like everyone else.

Jack is being hosted by the Samwell Men’s Hockey team’s starting goalie, an unassuming dude who greets Jack with a fistbump and introduces himself as Johnson. He’s also their tour guide, and Jack hovers nervously by him as the group congregates in the middle of what Jack learns is called Lake Quad—because of, fittingly, the huge lake bordering one side. 

Johnson does a roll call to check that they have everyone, then launches into a clearly rehearsed speech welcoming them all and detailing the itinerary for the weekend. He kind of already told Jack everything when he arrived earlier, but Jack listens intently anyway in case Johnson says something new. 

“All right,” Johnson concludes, “has everyone got the information packets? We all set? Great. First things first, let’s get to know each other! Prospies, find a partner who is also a prospie. Don’t stress, just pick the closest person you don’t know.” 

Jack looks awkwardly around. He has no idea who to ask to be his partner, and the thought of trying to talk to someone is making his stomach sink. He’s considering asking a tall girl who looks a bit lost and a lot like she won’t laugh at Jack when Johnson touches his arm. “This way,” he says, jerking his head. “This is where we’re really gonna start laying the groundwork for your in-comic narrative. I’ve got a dude who’s the perfect balance to your personality just waiting to be your best friend forever. He’s gonna be really good for you, okay?”

“Um,” Jack says, “okay?” Johnson sounded weirdly like Ruby there, and Jack hadn’t thought anyone could ever accomplish sounding as strange as Ruby. It’s obviously some weird goalie thing.

Johnson leads Jack over to a dude in a bizarre mismatch of pressed trousers and a t-shirt with a picture of a band Jack has never heard of. He does not look like the kind of guy Jack would be particularly good friends with—but then again, Jack has never really been friends with anyone he didn’t somehow meet through hockey. 

“Hey!” the dude says, shoving his sunglasses into his hair and holding his hand out to Jack. “Partners?”

Jack cautiously shakes the guy’s hand and nods. He glances around; everyone seems to have found a partner and be patiently waiting for instructions. Johnson double checks that everyone has a partner, assigns one lone boy to a pair of girls who he says “will open your eyes, dude, just wait”, and then addresses them all. 

“The objective is to learn where your partner is from and three random facts about them, and then we’ll form a circle and go around introducing our partners to the group. Any questions?” 

There aren’t any, and so everyone starts talking to their partners. “Uh,” Jack says, “I’m Jack.”

“Shitty,” the guy says.

Jack blinks. He’s not sure if he should be offended or what. “What?” 

The guy starts laughing. “Oh—oh no. Not your name or anything. That’s my name. Or, well, my nickname.” 

“Oh. People call you… Shitty?”

Shitty nods and beams. “It’s a long story. Anyway, I’m from Brookline. You?”

Jack doesn’t know where that is, so he assumes it must be somewhere in the Boston area. “Montréal,” Jack says. “A suburb, actually, but uh. Whatever.”

“Cool, cool. You’ve got the accent,” Shitty says, nodding. “But I guess I probably do too. What do you think: car, park, Harvard?” 

He’s obviously exaggerating the lack of R-sounds, but it actually does make Jack feel less self-conscious. “Yeah,” he agrees.

Shitty beams. “Okay, so, three facts about me, let’s see. I’ve always wanted to grow a moustache.”

Jack does his best to commit this to memory. “You’d look cool,” he offers when Shitty seems to be waiting for an opinion.

“Right? I think I could rock it. My family is so not into the facial hair scene, y’know? But I’m also gonna be the first in my family to major in something that isn’t Economics. Oh, use that for one of the facts. I’m not sure what I _am_ gonna major in, exactly, I just know it’s _not_ gonna be that.” 

“Too many expectations?” Jack asks. If there’s one thing in this world he can understand, it’s that.

Shitty shrugs, nonchalant. “Something like that. Let’s see, um, third thing…” He looks around, seeming to be trying to divine something out of the air. It seems to work, because he says, “Oh! My favourite superhero is Wonder Woman. Your turn!” 

_Brookline, moustache, not Economics, Wonder Woman_ , Jack thinks to himself, then clears his throat. “I, uh… assistant coach a Pee-Wee hockey team?”

Shitty nods. “Cool! Passing on the love of the game, that’s sick, bro.” 

Jack can’t help but smile at that. “Yeah,” he says automatically, then fully processes Shitty’s enthusiasm. He tries not to get his hopes up, but if Shitty plays hockey, then the chances that Jack will be able to carry on a conversation with him for long enough that they actually become friends just skyrocketed. “Do you play?” 

“Yeah, man, I’m a winger,” Shitty says. “I’m not, like, amazing, but I fucking love it.”

“Awesome!” Jack says, then immediately proceeds to worry that he’s acting way too excited about this. He doesn’t want to scare Shitty off. “I play centre. That’s actually why I’m looking into Samwell. Well, part of it. The hockey program, that is. It’s, uh, supposed to be good?” 

Shitty nods. “Me too,” he says. “Maybe if we both go here we can be lineys!”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jack says, trying not to sound like he’s already picturing it in his head. He clears his throat and turns it into an awkward cough.

“I still need two more facts about you, brah,” Shitty reminds him. 

“Right, yeah.” He wracks his brain for something else. “Um, I cheer for the Habs?” 

“Well, of course,” Shitty says. “Your hometown and all. I’ll give it to you, though, if you promise me your third fact isn’t gonna be hockey related.”

Jack makes a face. He supposes that’s fair. “Fine, er…”

“You can do it, dude,” Shitty says encouragingly. “I believe in you.”

Jack deliberates for a moment, trying to think of what he does when he isn’t playing hockey. “I like history,” he says finally. 

“Sick!” Shitty says. “You gonna major in it?” 

“Probably, yeah,” Jack says. 

“Hm,” Shitty says, and then, “Weirdest fact you know from before 1950, go.”

“Uh,” Jack says, caught, “um, I don’t know if it’s weirdest? But in World War I, the rate of venereal disease among Canadian troops was six times higher than it was for the British troops.”

Shitty bursts out laughing. “No shit? Oh my God. How high was that rate then?” 

“Something like one in every nine men?” Jack says, and Shitty laughs even harder at that. Jack’s pretty pleased with how amused he is by this. It feels good to make someone laugh.

“Wow, dude,” Shitty says, clapping Jack on the shoulder. “See, I knew you were hiding your fun self underneath your hockeybot exterior.” 

“Sure,” Jack says. He supposes that’s true enough. “I, um. Am glad you brought it out.”

“Anytime, bro,” Shitty says. “Anytime.” 

— 

Jack manages to get through introducing Shitty even in the face of a bunch of teenagers who won’t stop giggling at the nickname, and then they get on with the actual tour part of the day. Shitty sticks with Jack and keeps up a steady commentary the entire time. Jack’s trying really hard to listen to Johnson tell them the history of the buildings and what kind of things go on around campus, but Shitty’s comments keep making him have to stifle laughter. 

It’s a nice campus, though—it’s almost comically smaller than Michigan’s had been. In contrast, Jack can easily picture himself here, hanging out with Shitty in the quad, studying in the library, going to classes. University has been looming in the back of his mind like something terrifying and incomprehensible, even more so after visiting UM. Now that he’s at Samwell, it seems a lot more real and a lot more manageable. 

The last stop on the tour is Faber Memorial Rink, “for dramatic effect,” according to Johnson. He gives them a minute to themselves after showing them around, and Jack stares out at the ice from the bleachers. It’s a beautiful arena, tall windows at one end flooding it with light, and Jack itches to be at centre ice. Even Shitty is silent for once.

“Nice rink, eh?” Jack says eventually. 

“Fucking sick as hell,” Shitty agrees. 

They break for lunch in the dining hall, where Jack meets Shitty’s host. He’s a tall, beefy sophomore who’s also on the hockey team, and he introduces himself as simply Kreids. Jack nods hello and doesn’t contribute much to the lunchtime discussion at their table, more content to listen to the idle chatter. Shitty does a great job filling a silence, a trait that Jack admires and appreciates. Best of all, nobody tries to tell Jack what a great fit he’d be for their team. 

The event after lunch is meant for them to show off how well they paid attention during the tour: it’s set up like _The Amazing Race_ , so each team gets a clue pertaining to a location on campus and then has to perform a task at the correct station to get their next clue. As soon as Johnson says they’re going to be picking their own teams of any size, Shitty is grabbing Jack’s arm before Jack can even look over at him. 

They’re standing in front of Founder’s, Jack still trying to get the taste of the concoction they’d made him drink two clues ago out of his mouth while they contemplate clue five, when a short guy with a Bruins hat on and a girl who’s clinging to his arm come up to them.

“Hey,” the guys says. Jack looks up from the piece of paper he’s been scrutinizing, and the girl giggles. They’re both staring at him. 

Jack frowns. “Hi?” he says cautiously.

“Aren’t you that hockey dude that overdosed on drugs?” the guy asks, voice loud and a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Fuck," Shitty says under his breath, trying to pull Jack away.

“Jack Zimmermann!” the girl adds, seeming pleased to know his name.

Jack feels frozen, rooted to the spot. It’s not as if he hadn’t thought about the possibility of people recognizing him, they had before, he just—he hadn’t been expecting it like this. Not now, not after he’s spent the day feeling comfortable here.

“What are you doing here?” the guy continues, apparently no longer needing Jack to confirm his identity. “Shouldn’t you, like, still be in rehab? Or at least holing up in your daddy’s—”

“Hey!” Shitty interrupts loudly. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, buddy? Jack’s got as much of a fuckin’ right to be here as you do, and he doesn’t need you being a douche rocket and sticking your nose in his fucking business. If you’ll excuse us…” He grabs Jack’s arm at the end of his sentence and drags him away. Jack trips over his feet and nearly falls over, but Shitty steadies him. “You okay, man?” he asks when they’re a good distance away from the other two. 

Jack struggles to process what the hell just happened. “Uh,” he says, “yeah? I—uh.”

“They were out of line,” Shitty says earnestly. He looks honestly worried about Jack. “No one should talk to you like that.”

“I didn’t know you knew who I was,” Jack blurts out, and then he immediately feels like an idiot. 

Shitty shrugs. “I didn’t want to make it a big deal if you were trying to keep a low profile, y’know? And I meant what I said.” 

Jack shifts uncomfortably. “You didn’t have to,” he says.

“Shut up,” Shitty says. “And seriously, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “I just wasn’t expecting that, that’s all.”

“Well, you shouldn’t fucking have to,” Shitty says fiercely. 

Jack is touched by how much Shitty seems to care; he doesn’t think he’s ever had anyone be so quick to jump to his defence. He offers Shitty his best appreciative smile and waves the clue at him. “What do you say we get back to kicking everyone’s asses at this shit?” 

“Hell yeah,” Shitty says, beaming. “Let’s fuckin’ do it.”

—

Jack and Shitty don’t win—that honour goes to a group of about five girls who are so happy that Jack can’t even begrudge them for it. They get a respectable and pretty close second, anyway, and there aren’t even prizes if pizza doesn’t count (and everyone gets the pizza, so Jack’s pretty sure it doesn’t).

“Kreids said he was gonna take me to a party tonight,” Shitty says around a mouthful of pizza. “You wanna come?” 

Jack winces. He definitely doesn’t want to be at any raging college parties. “Uh,” Jack mumbles, “nah, I’ll pass.” 

He figures that’ll be the last of their temporary friendship. Shitty will realize what a loser Jack actually is and avoid associating with him for at least the rest of the weekend—probably forever if they both decide to go to Samwell. 

Shitty surprises him by shrugging and swallowing his pizza before saying, “Okay, then give me your phone so I can text you and we can hit up the events tomorrow together, yeah?” 

Jack blinks. “Oh, um. Yeah.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Shitty, who immediately laughs. 

“What decade is this phone even from, dude?” Shitty says, flipping it open. “Show me how to make a new contact?”

Jack barely knows how to work his phone himself even though he’s had it for years, but together they manage to figure out how to add Shitty’s number and text him so he has Jack’s. 

“Thanks, man,” Shitty says. “I’m heading out, see you tomorrow?”

Jack nods. “See you,” he says. He has doubts about Shitty actually texting him, sure that he’ll get distracted by girls at the party or something, but it’s nice of Shitty to pretend, anyway.

— 

When Jack wakes up the next morning, he already has two texts from Shitty. The first says _‘I've got to stop being so hungover that I puke in the fine establishments of this glorious town’,_ and it’s followed up by _‘I’ve fucked up the superberry and a dunkin already, plus the bar last night. Wanna meet me at the cafe by campus so I can puke there too?’_

Jack can’t help but smile at his phone. Shitty is a bit of a weird dude, but Jack thinks they could be pretty good friends. 

_‘Yeah,_ ’ he texts back, _‘ok. ‘_


	10. Chapter 10

**Jack**  
Good luck tonight.  
4:22 PM | 04-01-11

 **Kent**  
You too!!  
5:02 PM | 04-01-11

— 

Jack spends so much time flying around to colleges in between his regular coaching duties that March is nearly over before he can even process it. He gets to see some nice places—the university campuses are usually a combination of beautiful old buildings and really cool new architecture, and what he sees of the cities themselves is cool as well. 

He doesn’t want to make a decision without giving everywhere a fair chance, but he keeps finding himself comparing everywhere to Samwell. He meets some nice people, but none so nice as Shitty and Johnson. Still though, he can picture himself at some of the other universities, so he doesn’t want to commit to anything quite yet. 

The American universities are almost all as aggressive as the University of Michigan was. It makes sense—it’s a lot more of a competition to get the top talent for them. The Canadian universities make a case for themselves, though. McGill especially does, though Jack suspects that might have more to do with the fact that Cyrille came along on his campus tour and made bad jokes in his ear the entire time than anything else. 

As a side effect of being so busy, Jack has less time to talk to Kent. It’s not a huge deal, since Kent is pretty busy himself, what with trying to drag his team to the playoffs kicking and screaming. Jack finds himself spending more time on NHL.com checking up on the standings and Kent’s stats so that Kent doesn’t have to expend his energy telling Jack the gritty details. 

They take to leaving each other short voicemails when one of them misses a call because, in Kent’s words, Jack sucks at texting. When Jack sees Kent’s name come up on his phone’s display in a moment when he actually has time to talk, he answers right away, and Kent makes a noise of surprise.

“You’re not your voicemail,” he says.

“Nope,” Jack confirms. “I’m actually in the car on the way home from an away game. Cyrille’s driving.” 

“Hello,” Cyrille says loudly, and Kent laughs. 

“How’d your boys do?” Kent asks. 

“Won,” Jack says. “It was a good one, close to a shutout. The other team didn’t lie down and take it, so the boys were pretty stoked. How did _your_ boys do?” 

“Not such good news,” Kent says. Jack can hear the bitterness in his voice. “Lost in overtime, so at least we got a point, but we could’ve used two.”

Jack makes a sympathetic noise. “Of course,” he says. 

“Anyway, I didn’t call you to fucking whine,” Kent says. “I called to tell you I found a video of your kids at that tournament. That bar down goal you told me about is way cooler to actually watch, you suck at describing things.”

“Hockey isn’t meant to be heard,” Jack says automatically. “Hold on, when did you find time to go looking up videos, Mr. NHL?” 

“ _Some_ of us actually know how to use a computer,” Kent chirps. “And that argument is still stupid, radio play-by-play announcers do a fine job of making hockey heard. You’re the one who sucks.” 

“Fuck off,” Jack says, tone completely good-natured. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cyrille glance at him, then look back at the road, a confused crease between her eyebrows. “Was that all you called to say?” 

Kent sighs into the phone. “Pretty much,” he says. “I’m tired as shit.”

“Get some sleep,” Jack says. “I’m telling you that as a certified assistant coach.”

Kent snorts. “Please shut up.” 

“Just saying,” Jack says innocently, grinning. 

“Goodnight, Zimms,” Kent says, voice unmistakably fond.

“Night, Kenny,” Jack replies. He hangs up, but he keeps smiling for a good minute. They’re still a good fifteen minutes from home, and Cyrille keeps glancing at him until he finally asks, “What’s up?” 

“Sorry,” Cyrille says. “I just—how can you be having such a… normal conversation with him?”

“Kent?” Jack asks more out of surprise than anything. 

Cyrille nods anyway. “After how much of a shit he was, I guess,” she says. “I know he apologized, but… you never did tell me that you’d really talked things out or anything? Did you just not say?” 

Jack shrugs. “No, I guess we didn’t really talk it out. We’re just… I don’t know, moving on? The past is in the past and all that.” 

“Huh,” Cyrille says. She seems doubtful, and Jack supposes that’s fair enough. It’s nice to know that she’s still firmly in his corner. 

“Don’t worry,” Jack says after a moment, unable to resist, “I’m still an independent lady.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Cyrille says, smacking Jack in the shoulder without taking her eyes off the road. Her expression is so perturbed that Jack immediately starts laughing and can’t stop. It doesn’t take long before Cyrille is laughing, too, and then she starts hiccuping and that just makes everything ten times funnier. 

Jack’s abs hurt from laughing by the time Cyrille actually drops him off at home. He can’t remember the last time that happened, but it doesn’t even matter. He can start counting forward from today.

—

The Conquérants easily make the playoffs, seeded first in the league. It doesn’t guarantee them a win—the Grenadiers were seeded first last year and they ended up losing in the final—but Jack is optimistic. It’s not as big a deal as the tournament, being just their league rather than an international stage, but it would still be nice to win it. Selfishly, Jack wants to go out on the good note they didn’t get last year.

They chalk up two wins on the first day. The first is by the skin of their teeth against the Grenadiers, the score 4-3 thanks to a goal from Shakes late in the third. The second is a more decisive win against the Lions, who make an impressive come back from a 4-0 deficit halfway through the game but are denied right after their game-tying goal by Sheepy scoring a beautiful one. Rebel holds strong for the last ten minutes despite the Lions’ best efforts, and they all get to go home feeling good and looking forward to the next day.

Jack makes sure to tell the kids to get a good night’s sleep, and he goes to bed almost comically early himself. Standing behind the bench during high pressure games is especially stressful and tiring.

He’s nearly drifted off when his phone, plugged in on his desk, starts ringing. He groans and drags himself out of bed and over to answer it. It’s Kent. Jack is somehow unsurprised.

“I was sleeping,” he says instead of saying hello.

Kent laughs. “Wow, I know it’s later there, but for fuck’s sake, old man.” 

“You say that again once you’ve chased after nineteen children all day,” Jack says, sitting down on his bed. 

“No thanks, I’m good,” Kent says. “How’s that going?” 

“Good,” Jack says. “Won both games today, and from the other games, looks like we’ll be playing in the final.”

“Awesome,” Kent says. “I just wanted to tell you good luck tomorrow. I’ll let you get back to your beauty sleep.” 

“Thanks,” Jack says. He means it to be a little sarcastic, but it comes out genuine. It’s nice of Kent to call, a direct contrast to how completely not nice it had been for him to show up last year. It might just be how tired Jack is, but he feels warm all over. “Oh hey—you have a game tonight, right? That didn’t start yet?” 

“Gotta get back to the locker room,” Kent says. “Bye, Zimms!” 

He hangs up before Jack can say goodbye himself—or tell Kent off for using the time right before a game to call Jack, of all things. Or wish him good luck, which might have been the best thing to say. The Aces are only a few crucial points away from a playoff spot, so every game counts right now. Jack’s fairly sure that if he were Kent, he wouldn’t be thinking of anything but hockey. 

It’s a lot to process that Kent is thinking of Jack anyway, but it’s a good kind of a lot. Jack goes back to bed instead of thinking about it too hard.

—

He gets to the arena early the next day to help set up. Quite a few of the kids are there too, and more of them show up during the first game. They end up making a solid section in the bleachers to watch the Grenadiers beat the Lions, and then Jack has to round them all up for their pre-game meeting and warmups. 

They’re playing the Patriotes—because of the way the numbers had worked out, it’s the first of two back-to-back games against them. The game is slow and sloppy right from the beginning, like neither team really cares. They probably don’t, knowing they have to do it again after supper regardless of what happens, but it’s frustrating to watch anyway. Jack finds himself telling them to pick up the pace over and over. They finally score near the end of the first, and the Patriotes don’t answer back until halfway through the second. 

It’s clear from the second the puck is dropped on the third period that the Patriotes had some kind of fire lit under them during the intermission. They come out hot and take the Conquérants by surprise, leaving them scrambling to catch up. They don’t score immediately, but it only takes a few minutes for the pressure they’re putting on the net to pay off. The boys don’t manage to score, and they fall to the Patriotes 2-1. 

“Good thing that doesn’t matter,” Chicken says grimly in the dressing room after. “We can’t let that happen in the next one.” 

“Damn right,” Monty says. 

“Get some food in you, all of you,” Coach Leclair says loudly. “I want to see you ready and raring to go for the final.”

There’s a smattering of acknowledgement and agreement from around the dressing room before the boys devolve back into cracking jokes at each other. Jack watches them for a few minutes, preemptively reminding himself that win or lose, the boys are going to be fine. 

It only helps a little bit. Jack and Cyrille get food from the concession and spend the supper break hanging out in the office. Cyrille lets Jack nervously pace when he’s done his food without saying anything. Eventually he sits down and tries to get a hold of himself, and Cyrille moves her chair next to his and punches him lightly in the arm.

“It’s just one game,” she says.

“It always is,” Jack says bitterly, and then he frowns at himself a moment later. “Sorry, that was dramatic.”

“It’s cool,” Cyrille says. “I know you’re a drama queen deep down.” Jack snorts, and Cyrille smiles at him. “Really, though, the kids won the international tournament. They’ll be a little sad if they lose this game, but they’ll bounce back.”

Jack nods. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I keep telling myself.” It really does help to hear it out loud, though. Sometimes he can’t quite trust himself. 

When they all gather back in the dressing room, it’s significantly quieter. Not silent—Jack would be seriously worried on the day the boys all shut up at once—but it’s clear they’re taking this seriously. Coach Leclair gives his standard pregame pep talk, and then Chicken gets up.

“Listen,” he says solemnly, “I made a promise to some people that I was gonna get them a trophy, so I’m gonna need all of you to have my back on this one. Okay?” 

The boys all cheer in response and start filing out to the ice, everyone high fiving Chicken on their way past him. 

They’re barely out on the bench for a minute before Jack hears voices in the stands saying his and Cyrille’s names. He turns around to see most of the kids from last year sitting in the stands, waving at him. A bunch of them have handmade signs completely decked out in Conquérants colours. He grins and waves back, then nudges Cyrille to make sure she sees them, too. 

Jack can’t help but hold his breath in the moment between the players lining up and the puck actually being dropped, and then he’s too busy watching his boys play _hockey_ to be tense. As nervous as he is about this, it’s just like it is when he’s actually on the ice himself: it’s just the game.

It’s a good game right from the get go. Both teams are clearly determined to win and making the plays to prove it. Having just played each other seems to have helped both teams a lot—they both know exactly how to shut the other’s attempts down. It’s frustrating, but the give-and-go of it makes for some interesting play to watch.

The first period ends scoreless, both teams obviously annoyed as they make their way back to their dressing rooms. Coach Leclair pulls out some of their lesser-used plays and talks them through, and then it’s back out to the ice. 

The new approach definitely helps, because the Conquérants score within the first three minutes. They get a little too cocky about it, though, and the Patriotes take advantage of that. 

“Tighten it up,” Jack tells them sternly.

“Game’s not over yet,” Cyrille reminds them. 

It certainly isn’t. The boys learn from their mistakes, thankfully. Garden gets a lot of stick taps and butt pats for his goal from the slot with a minute left to play, and the second period ends with them ahead by one again.

The Patriotes tie it up at the beginning of the third, a flukey goal that’s more chance than anything good or bad on either side, and Jack worries that it’s going to be a repeat of the earlier game.

“Just chance,” he tells them, tapping them all along their shoulders. “Just a fluke. You’re still in this.” 

They must take his words to heart, because they undoubtedly step it up. They get chance after chance, but the only one of the Patriotes whose play is rock solid is, unfortunately, the goalie. Finally, with four minutes left, they manage to create a jumble of bodies near the Patriotes’ net that ends with both Chicken and the puck in the net. It’s a good goal, and once Jack catches sight of Cyrille shaking her head in exasperation, he can’t stop laughing.

They might be up one, but the tension is still palpable, all the kids intense and focused. They keep up the pressure, and then Lion scores an empty netter that seals the deal. The time on the scoreboard runs out with the score 4-2 for the Conquérants.

Jack’s face hurts from smiling already, and when he gets dragged into a group hug by the boys, well. Nobody can blame him if he gets emotional about it. It’s exactly the fitting end to an era of his life that he wanted. It’s not like it’s a win that belongs solely to him—they never are in hockey, even when you’re on the ice—but it feels like a good sign. Maybe in four years, Jack lets himself think, he’ll get to have another perfect ending to mark a beginning. 

Chicken, true to his word, makes off with their trophy as soon as the award ceremony is over. Jack tracks him down hiding in a back hallway with Bear, JT, and Duck. Jack watches them taking pictures of each other for a moment before clearing his throat. 

“You have to give that back, you know,” he says. 

“Uuuuuuugh!” Chicken groans without missing a beat. “Coach Z, you suck.” 

“Yeah, Coach Z,” Bear says, his voice deeper than Jack remembers from the last time they talked. “You suck.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Here, I’ll take a picture of you all with the trophy, and then I’m taking it back to Coach Leclair.”

“Fine,” Chicken grouses, but he’s smiling too much for Jack to take him seriously. He hands Jack his digital camera, pointing out which button to press, and gets in between Duck and JT, throwing his arms around their shoulders. Bear gets in next to JT, and all four of them grin for the camera. Jack maybe looks at the display for a little longer than necessary once he’s taken the picture. 

“You should send me that,” Jack says when he gives Chicken the camera back.

“Sure,” Chicken agrees. 

Jack is exhausted by the time almost everyone is gone and there isn’t anything left for him to help with. It’s an exhilarated kind of exhausted, though, and Jack’s still too full of adrenaline to want to go home to bed, so when Cyrille finds him and asks if he wants to go to Tims, he agrees right away.

He gets them both hot chocolate and donuts with sprinkles while Cyrille snags a table in a quiet corner for them. When he sits down across from her, she’s rubbing her hands together. “Still frozen,” she says wryly. 

“Well, this should help with that,” Jack says, handing her one of the cups of hot chocolate. 

“Totally,” she agrees. “Thanks.”

“For sure,” Jack says. He busies himself opening the lid of his own hot chocolate and taking a careful sip. 

“So,” Cyrille says in between licking whipped cream off in the inside of her lid, “got that win you wanted.”

Jack smiles. “Yeah,” he says, “we had a good run of it, didn’t we?” 

Cyrille smiles back at him. “We did,” she says. “It’s so weird that it’s ending. I keep thinking, oh, next year—but I won’t be back next year. I mean, unless I either fail one of my classes or, more likely, completely fail at finding a job and have to beg them to take me back.”

“You won’t fail,” Jack says. “Not at either of those things.” He’s reasonably confident that he’s right about this. Cyrille works hard and doesn’t take any shit. She’ll make it happen for herself.

Cyrille shrugs. “I’m just saying. Graduating is… I don’t know. I haven’t even taken my last final exams.”

“I can’t imagine,” Jack says honestly. It’s weird to think that four years from now he’ll know exactly what Cyrille is going through. 

Cyrille sighs and looks down at the table top, then back up at Jack. “It just sucks that everything is the last thing, you know?” 

Jack nods. Now that he can relate to; he’s been through it enough. “Yeah.” 

“Anyway,” Cyrille says, “enough about me. What about you? Have you decided where you’re going in the fall?” 

“Samwell, I think,” Jack says, shrugging. He doesn’t think before he says it, and he catches himself off guard, but—it doesn’t feel wrong. In fact, none of the other schools felt as right as Samwell did. He’s even been texting Shitty a bit, and while that shouldn’t be a huge influence, Jack can’t help but factor it in.

Cyrille’s eyes are wide. “Here I thought you were going to give me another pros and cons list, but you’ve actually decided?” 

Jack laughs. “I mean. Yeah. It just feels like the right choice.” He hesitates, doubting himself for a minute. “You know?” 

“Sure!” Cyrille says, enthusiastic. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.” 

“Well,” Jack says, “let’s hope I’m happy then.” 

Cyrille grins at him. “To being happy,” she says, holding her cup up. Jack smiles back at her and bumps his cup gently against hers. 

—

The Conquérants end-of-season party is in the same back room at a local pizza place that it was last year. Jack helps hang the same battered ‘Thanks for a great season, Conquérants!’ banner on the wall, and Garden’s mother gives Jack another thank you scrapbook to pass along to Coach Leclair. It all feels very surreal. 

He occupies himself with making small talk and chatting about hockey with some of the parents, circulating around to make sure he talks to everyone. Normally he hates this part of any social gathering, but he’s good at it by practice and necessity, and right now it’s better than thinking about how not long from now he’s going to be telling all the kids that he isn’t coming back next year.

They already know Cyrille isn’t because she’s graduating, and Jack helped a few of them make her a parting gift (a personalized frame with the team picture in it). But he’s been deliberately keeping his college plans mainly to himself just in case something went wrong. With a notice of acceptance of Samwell University’s offer freshly sent off, the possibility of that is now slim to none. Besides that, it’s the end of the season. He’s probably not going to see all these kids in the same place at the same time in any official capacity ever again, and he owes the ones who will be returning next year an explanation of why he won’t be there. 

Knowing he should do it doesn’t make it easier to do. He’s tense all through the slideshow and Coach Leclair naming Sheepy next year’s captain to loud whooping from all the boys and an especially enthusiastic, “Yeah, buddy!” from Chicken. Sheepy is bright red at his table, but he’s smiling, taking slaps on the back from nearby kids with grace. Jack takes a moment to let himself be sad he won’t get to see Sheepy step up into the leadership role next season, then shoves that down.

“That’s me done,” Coach Leclair says. “Thanks again for a great season, everybody. I think Coach Zimmermann has a few words to say?” 

Jack, true to form, nearly knocks over his own chair when he goes to stand up. He hates being nervous. “Yeah,” he says, moving to stand next to Coach Leclair. “First, the boys teamed up to make you this scrapbook.” He holds it out, and Coach Leclair takes it. 

“Thanks, boys,” Coach Leclair says, flipping open the front page and looking at it. “I’ll give it a place of honour on my shelves.” 

Jack smiles. He fidgets as Coach Leclair sits down, his heart pounding in his chest. He glances over at Cyrille, who nods encouragingly at him. “Second…” he starts slowly, then spits it all out, “I just wanted to be sure that you all heard from me that I’m not going to be coming back as assistant coach next year.” 

There’s a stunned silence, and then Gaudy says, “ _What_?” 

“I’m going to university,” Jack explains. 

“But Coach Durand goes to university, and she was still our coach!” Lion points out. He’s staring at Jack like he’s been deeply betrayed. Jack feels awful.

“Yeah, but I’m going to Samwell University,” he says. “Not McGill.”

“To play hockey?” Grenzy asks.

Jack smiles a little despite himself. “Yeah.”

There’s a pause, the buzz of people talking quietly around the room, and then Rebel’s dad straightens up and asks, “Where is that?” 

“Uh, America,” Jack says. “Near Boston?” 

“Pretty far away,” Rebel’s dad says to Rebel. Rebel nods and bites his lip like he’s trying to hold back tears.

In fact, most of the kids look emotional. Chicken is full-on crying, which. Jack hadn’t really been expecting them to _cry_. He thought they might be mad or think he was letting them down. He didn’t think they would be sad. In retrospect, that seems pretty dumb of him.

“You can’t go,” Monty says. He sounds more vehement than he ever has while swearing, and that makes Jack feel even worse. 

“Are you going to visit us?” Letty asks at the same time. 

“Sure, of course I’ll visit when I have breaks,” Jack says, glancing to Coach Leclair for confirmation. Coach Leclair nods at him. 

“As long as you visit,” Gibs says like a warning. Jack nods seriously. 

“Hey, guys,” Cyrille says, “what do you say we all pile in and give Coach Z a group hug?” 

They don’t so much say anything as all immediately converge on Jack. He ends up crushed by them, Tiger and Shakes squished in the closest and all the rest of them doing their damnedest to make sure nobody has any room to breathe. It’s suffocating and completely wonderful. Cyrille grins at him over the heads of the boys, and Jack bites his lip and smiles back. He shuts his eyes tight and breathes deeply, letting himself be hugged.

He opens his eyes when he feels something digging into his chest—it’s Tiger’s chin as he looks up at Jack. “Are you going to study history?” he asks.

Jack smiles a little. “Yeah,” he says.

“Good,” Tiger says. “You’re a nerd. Sam-whatever can have you.” Jack outright laughs at that. 

Eventually they all have to break away from the group hug, and Jack apologizes to the room in general for ruining the mood of the celebration.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lion’s mother says. “It’s obvious how much the kids love you.” 

“We’ll definitely miss you,” Saver’s father says. 

“Well, I hear I’m visiting,” Jack says, grinning. The parents laugh appreciatively.

Over in a corner, Chicken is still crying, tears running down his face even as his mom rubs his back reassuringly and hands him Kleenex. 

“Dude,” Garden says, “why are you still crying? It sucks, but he wasn’t going to be our coach anymore anyway.” 

“Screw you,” Chicken says, blowing his nose loudly.

“Sebastien…” his mom says warningly.

“Well, he’s being mean,” Chicken protests. “Coach Z is my coach _forever_ , okay?” 

Jack feels like he needs to sit down, his heart too liquid in his chest to properly send blood to his brain or limbs. Garden rolls his eyes, but he also immediately comes over to hug Jack again when he spots him watching them. Chicken jumps up, too, throwing himself at Jack so hard they nearly both end up on the floor. 

“I’ll miss you, kid,” Jack says, and that sets Chicken off sobbing again. Jack takes a moment to be glad he waited until the end of the party to do this—everyone will be leaving soon, and then Jack can go home and wallow in his feelings all he wants.

Chicken’s parents pry him away from Jack eventually, and he’s mostly not crying by the time they actually leave. Jack makes sure to say goodbye to all of them individually, giving out hugs and fistbumps (and handshakes for the parents). 

Harts and his parents are nearly the last to leave, and Harts hesitates after they’ve said their goodbyes. “Um,” he says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, “can I…”

Jack abruptly realizes what he’s trying to say. “You can still call me,” he says. “Anytime.”

Harts smiles. “Okay,” he says. “Bye, Coach Z.” 

“Bye, Harts,” Jack says. 

Not long after that, all the boys and their families are gone, and all they have to do is clean up. Jack takes a deep breath. “That was… a lot,” he says. 

“You know, honestly, forget them,” Coach Leclair says, “what am _I_ going to do without you?” 

Jack laughs more because he’s not sure how to respond than anything else. “Hey,” he says. His emotions are all too close to the surface right now, and he’s struck by how he wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for Coach Leclair. “Thanks again, by the way. For, you know. Giving me a chance.”

Coach Leclair’s expression softens. “Of course, Jack,” he says. “Don’t be a stranger, all right?” 

“I won’t,” Jack says. He means it. 

—

“Saying goodbye to the boys sucked,” Jack says at the beginning of his next therapy session. “Like, really fucking sucked. I can’t stop thinking about how everything is changing.”

“But it’s a good change, isn’t it?” Julie asks. 

Jack scoffs. “The whole problem is that I don’t know if it’s going to be,” he says. “And I’ve been thinking—what am I going to do for therapy? I obviously can’t come here every Monday when I’m living in Massachusetts.” 

Julie gives him a sympathetic smile. “We can talk about that, if you like.”

“Please,” Jack says. Ever since the thought occurred to him a couple days prior, it’s been plaguing him. For all he hates talking about his emotions, he knows just how much he depends on the hour a week he spends sitting with Julie. 

“Do you think you’ll have time to keep up with a strictly scheduled session like we’ve been doing?” Julie asks.

Jack frowns. “I think making time is a priority,” he says. “At least for the beginning? Maybe I’ll settle and having some leeway will be okay?”

Julie nods. “That’s reasonable,” she says. “I can reach out to my network and find someone in the Samwell area willing to take you on. And no worries if you don’t like them, us therapists are never personally offended if a client wants to switch to someone else. It can certainly be a process of trial and error.” 

“Okay,” Jack says. For some reason, talking about this is making him even more uneasy about it. He thought it would have the opposite effect. “I just… I don’t know how I feel about not seeing you anymore.” 

“Understandable,” Julie says. “We’ve seen a lot of each other these past two years, haven’t we?”

It’s a bit of an understatement. Jack shrugs.

“Look at it this way,” Julie says after a moment. “You’ll be starting a new chapter of your life. You already started with that friend you made at Samwell, right? You’re going to meet even more new people, make some new friends, find some new people to talk to. Hopefully you’ll even feel like you can confide in them.”

Jack snorts involuntarily. He’s been texting Shitty a little bit, sure, but he’s not sure they’re ever going to make it to a confidant level. 

Julie smiles wryly. “I get that it seems far-fetched right now, and it’ll probably be hard, I don’t want to make you think it won’t be,” she says. “But it’s entirely possible. You feel comfortable confiding in Cyrille, don’t you?”

“I guess, yeah,” Jack agrees. It’s not like he tells Cyrille everything even now, but she definitely knows a lot of things about him that he wouldn’t tell anyone else. 

“Two years ago you thought she hated you,” Julie says. “What do you think that says?” 

Jack makes a face. He wants to be snarky and say it means that two years ago he didn’t _know_ Cyrille, but he’s not stupid. He gets what Julie is trying to say. “Okay, I’m capable of making friends,” he says. “Everything just sucks.”

Julie frowns. “Tell me exactly why it sucks.” 

Jack rolls his eyes, but he struggles for the words to answer the question. There’s an awful pit of dread in his stomach that he can’t get past. He keeps replaying saying goodbye to the boys in his head. 

“Because I’m leaving,” he says eventually.

“Well,” Julie says slowly, “it’s not forever, is it?” 

Jack shrugs. It might not be _forever_ , but it feels final. He has the entire summer ahead of him, months to plant this year’s garden and read books and work out and buy things for his dorm room, but it seems like gradual stepping stones leading to a cliff that drops into the terrifying unknown. 

“And it’s not a clean break,” Julie says. “You can still talk to your parents and Cyrille. You can come back and visit the boys and Coach Leclair. You can even still talk to me on occasion if you want. We can definitely email each other.”

Jack must still look doubtful at that, because Julie huffs a little at him. “Come on, Jack,” she says, teasing, “did you think I was just going to let my future NHL connection walk away? I expect life updates. I don’t need to be paid for my time to care about you.” 

“Oh,” Jack says. It’s not a _surprise_ , exactly, but the way Julie says it is just slightly different enough from how perfectly calm she usually is that it startles Jack out of the spiral he was heading into. “Right.”

“So try to stop putting so much pressure on yourself,” Julie tells him. “You have support, okay? Remember that.”

Jack nods. “Is that my homework?” he jokes.

Julie smiles at him. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s your homework.” 

—

Family dinner isn’t strictly at six every single day anymore, not like it was right after Jack got out of rehab, but they still eat together when they’re not busy. It’s not even really that they’re making a point of it, Jack thinks. It’s just—they want to. 

The dining room is silent, but it’s not a stifling silence by any means. If Jack had to pick a word to describe it, he would say it’s comfortable. It’s weird, really. Nothing about his relationship with his parents was particularly comfortable before, but all the time they’ve spent together over the last two years has made a real difference. It wasn’t even the times they were trying to bond, but more the little things that came with coexisting in the same space—sitting in the same room saying nothing, talking about meaningless things, gardening and running errands together.

Thinking about it makes Jack nervous for what it’s going to be like when he moves out at the end of the summer, when he’s hundreds of kilometres and an entire country border away. Things went pretty downhill the last time he lived somewhere else.

“Jack?” Alicia says, startling Jack out of his thoughts. “You’ve hardly touched your food. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, sorry,” he says. “Just thinking.” 

“About?” Bob asks, wiping at the edge of his mouth with a napkin and looking curious. 

Jack shrugs. He doesn’t really know how to put into words how glad he is that they can have dinner together without it turning into a fight or an icy silence. It’s not like his relationship with his parents is perfect, but at least it exists. It’s terrifying to think that moving out might fuck that up.

“I’m going to miss you,” he says eventually. Both of them look surprised, blinking at him in confusion for a moment.

“When you go to school?” Alicia asks unnecessarily, emotion already creeping into her voice. “Oh, Jack. We’re going to miss you, too.”

Bob nods. “House won’t be the same without you.”

“But it’s _months_ off,” Alicia adds. “We’ve got all spring and summer to go, mister. Don’t go trying to say goodbye already.” 

Jack laughs. “Sorry,” he says. “I don’t want to say goodbye at all. We’ll still be…?” He wants to say something like ‘close’ or ‘the same’, but he can’t figure out the right words, and it comes out sounding like a question even though he meant to make a statement. 

“Of course,” Alicia says, filling in his silence herself. “And we’ll have lots of visiting time.”

“I’m certainly not letting you go off to that school and not report back,” Bob says. “In fact—”

“—it’s not too late to decide to go to McGill instead!” Alicia finishes, teasing. It’s an old argument already, one Jack knows his lines in perfectly.

“We’re just saying,” Bob says, sitting back in his chair.

“Nah,” Jack says. “What’s that you always say, Dad? Time to get back out on the ice?” 

Bob heaves an overdramatic sigh, a smile tugging at the corners of his eyes. “I guess I _do_ say that.” 

Strangely enough, Jack feels much more settled for having been teased about it. It really is months until he has to leave, and there’s no use panicking about losing a relationship when it hasn’t even come close yet. He smiles at both his parents and is gratified when they both smile back. 

“You’ll do great,” Bob says after a moment. “We’re proud of you.”

It’s still weird to hear him say, still a little unreal when it’s not about making the NHL, but at least it no longer feels like a lie. Jack nods. “Thanks, Dad,” he says. 

—

The Aces make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history by the skin of their teeth, edging out the Ducks by only a couple points. As a consequence, two things happen in Jack’s life: he doesn’t talk to Kent for a while, and he watches NHL games on TV. Neither of the things feel as monumental as Jack has built them up to be in his head. The silence between him and Kent is casual rather than tense, and the games are just games, no different from any of the ones he watched growing up. 

It’s certainly not a boring series. Both the Aces and the Aeros are young and inexperienced, playing it fast and loose, and their games are high-scoring and genuinely exciting to watch. Jack sometimes texts Shitty about the games, and that’s fun because he doesn’t know anything about Shitty’s hockey opinions yet, so he gets to learn.

It’s not so fun to watch when the Aces lose the series in six games, though, especially when the TV shows a close-up of Kent’s face at the end of the game, exhausted and obviously holding back tears. Jack turns it off.

When he Skypes Kent a couple days later, Kent still looks like he hasn’t had enough sleep, but he’s beaming. “Hey, Zimms,” he says. “Missed you.”

Jack can feel himself flushing a little. “No, you didn’t,” he says. “You didn’t have time to miss me.” 

Kent shrugs, still smiling in that infectious way he has. “Did so,” he counters simply. “What have you been up to? I feel like I’ve been in a bubble. Let me tell you, I never want to see Aeros colours again, and I’m iffy on a couple of my teammates.” He holds his resolve on that for barely a second before saying, “Not actually, my team is the fucking greatest. Really though, tell me what’s up.” 

Jack shrugs. “Honestly, just relaxing a lot.”

Kent groans. “You—”

“Yeah, I suck,” Jack teases. “I watched your games.”

Kent straightens up at that. “Did you?” 

“Yeah,” Jack says, shrugging. Kent’s silence is telling of how much of a big deal he knows that is, and it’s making Jack distinctly uncomfortable. “Anyway. There’s nothing really much for me to do until fall.” 

“Tell me about it,” Kent says, visibly recovering. “The off-season sucks.”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees. “But at least at Samwell I’ll get to actually play, that’s something to look forward to.”

“Where?” Kent asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Oh,” Jack says. He completely forgot he never told Kent where he decided to go to school. It wasn’t intentional; Kent’s mostly been curious and nice about it since his initial bad reaction and apology. He sometimes seems tense, though, so Jack still mostly tries not to bring college up himself. He doesn’t hesitate to mention it if it’s relevant, but it’s usually not. “I’m going to Samwell University.” 

“Where’s that?” Kent asks.

“Near Boston?” Jack says. 

Kent frowns. “No,” he says.

Jack, already cautiously defensive, immediately bristles. “What do you mean no?” he says. He feels slightly nauseous; going over this again is the last thing he wants to do. “I thought you got this, I’m not ready to be in—”

“No, no,” Kent interrupts. “No, I just mean, like, isn’t there a university closer to Vegas that you could go to?” He makes an over-exaggerated pouty face, and Jack snorts, overwhelmed with relief. 

“I don’t think so,” Jack says. 

“Aw, come on,” Kent says. “Samwell’s not even a hockey school!” 

Jack shakes his head. Even if there was a school near Las Vegas that he wanted to go to, he doesn’t think he would. He and Kent might be friends again, but their relationship is nowhere near perfect. Keeping some distance between them is definitely better for everyone.

“Why would I want to see your ugly mug all the time?” Jack says instead of voicing that. 

Kent puts a hand to his chest and feigns pain. “That stings, Zimms. Really cuts me deep.” 

“I think you’ll be fine,” Jack says dryly. 

“Nah,” Kent says, dropping the dramatics. There’s a pause, Kent looking away from the camera for a moment and biting his lip, then looking back with resolve on his face. “Hey, uh… maybe I can visit you at Samwell? Some time?”

Jack is surprised to find that he doesn’t mind the idea of that so much. It might actually be nice to invite Kent to be a small part of whatever life Jack manages to establish there. “Okay,” he agrees. “Some time. Why not.” 

“Why not,” Kent echoes.

They both still have a long way to go from here, the road ahead full of who knows what. Jack knows he’s not done working through all his shit, especially not with how drastically his life is about to change. Kent, for his part, still has to help piece his team back together again and take them all the way to the Cup. 

There’s a lot of pressure on their shoulders, even now, but—they made it this far. At this point, Jack is sure that as long as they want to, they’re going to have each other in one capacity or another, just like he’ll always have hockey. He used to be terrified by all the implications of that, scared shitless of all the ways he was needed and couldn’t measure up, but now it’s just comforting. He might have to be reminded from time to time, but he doesn’t have to measure himself to know that as long as he’s trying, he’s enough.

 

 

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I've had such a good time posting this and responding to feedback. If you want to chat Coach Z or whatever with me, hit me up at [my Tumblr](http://thistidalwave.tumblr.com) or [my Twitter](http://twitter.com/thistidalwave). Thank you again!


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